Abstract
Background: This article examines the phenomenon of academic integrity during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with particular reference to emergency online assessments in 2020.Aim: It explores academic dishonesty, cheating and plagiarism of university students during emergency remote online assessment, from the perspective of South African students.Setting and Methodology: The authors explore the approaches of different universities worldwide, as well as the extant literature on the topic. An examination of the current literature related explicitly to the COVID-19 online assessments reveals a dearth of engagement by researchers in the South African context. In order to address this lacuna, the authors rely on data generated from an institutional forum on academic dishonesty at a University in South Africa. It focuses specifically on the voices of students presented during the forum, which explained both why students are dishonest and ways to curb dishonesty.Results and Conclusion: The data generated show whilst some students were dishonest due to pandemic-related issues (like lack of monitoring), there are also other reasons, such as lack of time management, feeling overwhelmed and stressed and struggling with technology that contributes to student dishonesty. Students suggest that assessments be approached differently online to curb academic dishonesty. The paper concludes by providing some fundamental changes needed to address academic dishonesty.
Highlights
The question of academic integrity quickly gained prominence when global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) restrictions forced higher education institutions to switch to online teaching, learning and assessment in 2020:
This paper explores a phenomenon from a South African perspective, namely academic integrity, during online assessments
Harmon and Lambrinos (2008), for example, argue: The potential for a higher incidence of academic dishonesty in online courses than in face-to-face courses has been much discussed, and many authors have commented on the dearth of empirical evidence ... our results suggest that online exams administered in a proctored environment might equalise the incidence of academic dishonesty between online courses and face-to-face courses. (p. 123)
Summary
At the height of lockdown measures in April 2020, almost 1.5 billion learners, or 83.8%, were affected by the pandemic and subsequent closure of educational institutions (Gamage, De Silva & Gunawardhana 2020:1; UNESCO 2021) These lockdowns meant face-to-face teaching, sit-down assessments and examinations with invigilators had to be suspended. Without invigilators on hand to detect any dishonesty, online assessments opened the door to new forms of academic cheating. At this point, when the pandemic has already entered is the second year, there is no evidence that online assessment is sufficiently reliable. This article examines the phenomenon of academic integrity during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with particular reference to emergency online assessments in 2020
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