Why even go through the process of accusing them of cheating? If the fake answers were all wrong, just grade the test honestly and the cheaters will get what's coming to them without any ambiguity or additional overhead on his part.
I would just ignore any problematizers who question the ethics of testing students' honesty. I think those people are silly and should rightly be ignored, except to mock them. But that's probably why I'm not a philosopher.
At my previous university, this would constitute as blatant plagiarism.
Plagiarism was punished by a "three strikes and you're out" principle. If you got caught more than twice over the three years bachelor course, you got kicked out and couldn't start the same program for a few years. You also had to explain (or defend, but rarely anyone ever got accused on false grounds) your transgression to the graduation board, with the possibility of worse punishment if you were particularly blatant about the whole thing. Obviously, you immediately failed the course you were caught on as well.
This system worked well. Cheating was rare and students appropriately shot down team members that would suggest any type of plagiarism. So, why go through the process of accusing them? Because cheating deserves worse than just a bad grade, in my opinion.
It wasn't just for cheating, though. Any form of plagiarism was punished this way.
In one exercise, we had to set up a website (basic HTML/JS/CSS stuff). To fill up this site with content, one student translated an entire other website without clear credit (there was a little link on the bottom of the index but that was about it). Despite the focus of the course having nothing to do with the content, that was a strike.
Another student I knew got a strike got one because in the first report they had to write in a group, one of their team members copied some text from Wikipedia and didn't tell anyone. That probably worked in high school, but it sure didn't work here! The entire group got a strike on their record for that, not even two months into their education.
If you were cheating particularly badly, there could be more consequences than "just" a strike. I doubt they'd let you get away with looking up answers to test questions.
In contrast, at my current university, cheating is rampant. Entire courses with known mass cheating had no measures taken because that would affect too many students. It's terrible and if things don't change I wouldn't be surprised if degrees would lose accreditation at some point.
Because the punishment for cheating is not a poor grade but severe discipline (typically suspension or expulsion), the bad grade was for not learning the material in class.
I would be tempted to do the same, and not say anything about it. It would be interesting and informative to see how the cheaters responded.
It is not something one could do every time, however, as it will become known that the actual questions (though with incorrect answers) could be found on the web.
>If the fake answers were all wrong, just grade the test honestly and the cheaters will get what's coming to them without any ambiguity or additional overhead on his part.
Failing that one exam (especially if they got some of the questions right despite cheating on others, so, for example got a 50% grade on the exam) may have allowed some of them to still get a passing grade in the course, the penalty for cheating may be worse:
I am in discussion with my Chair about exactly what response is appropriate for these students, but a zero on the final is the bare minimum, and an F in the class is likely for some, if not all of those who cheated.
(and some schools may have additional penalties in the form of academic probation or even expulsion)
There are two goals: Encourage learning, and discourage cheating. A low grade doesn't necessarily do the former.
It also depends how the overall course grade is structured. In my undergrad, it was common that the final exam was not an outsized portion of your grade. A number of courses pegged it at 10% - meaning if you did really well throughout the semester, you could just not study at all, get a 25% score on the final (i.e. fail the final), and still get an A.
Aside: I loved those courses - work hard to get in a good position, and chill during the finals. The professors also wanted to encourage continual effort and learning, and making the overall grade be heavily dependent on the final would discourage that.
I would just ignore any problematizers who question the ethics of testing students' honesty. I think those people are silly and should rightly be ignored, except to mock them. But that's probably why I'm not a philosopher.