Abstract
Worldwide, higher education institutions made quick and often unprepared shifts from on-site to online examination in 2020 due to the COVID-19 health crisis. This sparked an ongoing debate on whether this development made it easier for students to cheat. We investigated whether students did indeed cheat more often in online than in on-site exams and whether the use of online exams was also associated with higher rates of other behaviors deemed as academic dishonesty. To answer our research questions, we questioned 1608 German students from a wide variety of higher education institutions about their behavior during the summer semester of 2020. The participating students reported that they cheated more frequently in online than in on-site exams. Effects on other measures of academic dishonesty were negligible. These results speak for the notion that the swift application of ad-hoc online testing during 2020 has led to negative consequences for academic integrity.
Highlights
Worldwide, higher education institutions made quick and often unprepared shifts from on-site to online exam ination in 2020 due to the COVID-19 health crisis
From the students’ perspective, the anticipation of less accountability for cheating in combination with difficulties to prepare for the online exams, might have increased the appeal to cheat in online exams
We investigate whether students did cheat more during the COVID-19 pandemic when examined through online exams compared to on-site exams, and whether a shift in the mode of examination was associated with elevated rates of further dishonest behaviors
Summary
Higher education institutions made quick and often unprepared shifts from on-site to online exam ination in 2020 due to the COVID-19 health crisis. We investigate whether students did cheat more during the COVID-19 pandemic when examined through online exams compared to on-site exams, and whether a shift in the mode of examination was associated with elevated rates of further dishonest behaviors (e.g., more plagiarism, lying or bribing of university instructors for better grades). We use the term cheating when referring to the more narrowly defined behavior of using unal lowed material or unallowed assistance during exams Both academic dishonesty in general and cheating during exams in particular are highly prevalent in higher education institutions. Prior research has repeatedly shown that the majority of students admit to having engaged in academic dishonesty during their studies [9,38,52] This finding has inspired a multitude of research frameworks aiming to explain which personal and environmental factors can elevate or reduce cheating rates. In the terms of such models, academic dishonesty may be understood as a function of students’ evaluation of the potential outcome of dishonest behavior, their perceived ability to succeed without dishonesty as well as on (external and internal) costs bound to the expected likelihood of potential sanctions [43]
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