Cybersecurity: a tool for curbing examination breaches and improvement of the quality of large-scale educational assessments

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study investigated how cybersecurity can be integrated to curb examination breaches among large-scale educational assessment bodies in Nigeria. Descriptive research designed guided the study with 1067 participants drawn through multistage sampling procedure. Cybersecurity and examination breaches on large-scale educational assessment questionnaire (CEBLSEA-Q) was used for data collection. The internal consistency reliability index of the instrument was evaluated to be .78 using Cronbach alpha method. The findings of the study showed that hacking of websites, colluding via social media (WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter etc.), sending of malicious/phishing links, using man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack are some of the cyberattacks on large-scale educational assessments. The proportion of examination breaches experienced by the various examination bodies was significantly different with WAEC being the highest, followed by NECO, JAMB, and NABTEB. Cybersecurity measures such as cloud computing, securing domain name server (DNS), encrypting computers and applications containing assessment database, cybersecurity awareness, among others could curb cyberspace aided examination breaches on educational assessments. Cybersecurity measures should be adopted by large-scale educational agencies in order to curb examination breaches that are aided through the cyberspace.