Don't Use Kahoot as a Testing Tool

Kahoot! is great for lots of things.

As stated on their website, Kahoot! makes learning awesome! And I agree. It is awesome. The amazing songs, colorful artwork and competitive scoring gets the class and others engaged in the subject, excited to test their knowledge.

However, after gaining popularity for Kahoot bot use, I have come across some serious messages:

Messages stating that their teachers did exams and assignments through Kahoot!

Even though this happened while COVID-19 put everyone in quarantine, it still boggles my mind how Kahoot! was a popular resource for testing. Even online, there are many comments speaking of teachers saying that the game is for points. (Even my teacher has done that once.)

Why Kahoot! is not a testing resource.

In a classroom, people learn differently. Some can quickly memorize and remember, but some may learn in other ways or differently. Sometimes, multiple choice questions are not the best form of testing knowledge, but if you have a premium account (or use this website), you can use open ended questions, allowing for text-based answers.

Still, forcing students to answer withing a set amount of time is not fair. Some students can't see the screen and as stated before, aren't as good at quickly reading a question and remembering information.

Of course, there is also this tool (and others like it), which almost guarantees the user to win if the quiz is a public game.

What about a homework tool?

This is even worse. Even without Kahoot Winner, the players have access to the title of the Kahoot. They could just search it up on Kahoot. The smarter ones might even notice that all the data is sent over to the client, containing all the questions and answers to the quiz. With Kahoot Winner, players are guaranteed to get 100% full credit without doing anything. They can even mess up on purpose, and still get full points.

If you want to use something online as a homework or exam tool, use something like Google Forms at least, but Kahoot has its risks and disadvantages of being very easy to cheat in. Of course, if the assignment is not very important, feel free to use Kahoot! as a homework or testing tool.

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