Cheating in the wake of COVID-19: How dangerous is ad-hoc online testing for academic integrity?

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.

Keywords

• Academic dishonesty
• Cheating
• Examination
• Online testing