ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explain how test-response data analysis can be used to identify test cheating and piracy, and to direct remedial action. It describes the size and forms of the cheating problem, and provides illustrations using real test data of how data forensics can be confidently used to detect and reform cheating. The phrase data forensics is meant to describe an investigative methodology based on the statistical analysis of test and item responses for indications of cheating and piracy. Data forensics can reveal testing behaviors that are invisible to other types of surveillance such as wireless communication between examinees, or prior access to protected test material on the Internet. In the United States, fortunately, there are powerful examples of the legal defensibility of data forensic evidence in both state and federal jurisprudence. Each data forensics statistic is specifically designed to measure one or another aspect of cheating.
