Is cheating more prevalent in online courses?

Online classes are on the rise, and with them comes the need to assess learners. Instructors have told me that frequently online courses are added to their face-to-face workload, and some say they do not get paid as much for online classes as they do for face-to-face. How do they maintain a fair and equitable testing environment without an exponential increase in workload? Should online courses pay less than face-to-face? Should there be a cap on the number of learners in an online class? How do you prevent cheating in an online class? These are questions many faculty ask when making a move to online courses.

More cheating in online classes?

Several studies have been done to evaluate whether there is increased cheating in online courses versus traditional courses, and so far, the evidence is promising that there is not. Some of these studies are based on self-report. (StuberMcEwen, Etter, Cramer, & Finn, 2007; Watson & Sottile, 2010) and some are based on analyzing the difference in test scores between proctored and unproctored tests. (Ladyshewsky, 2015). However, historically informal surveys of students questioned on cheating have found that that the incidence of cheating may be higher than expected (Corrigan-Gibbs et al., 2015).

The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too.

—Stephen Covey

What is cheating?

Why? I think in large part it is due to the definition of cheating. In today’s classroom, gone are the days of learning exclusively from lectures and textbooks. Students work in groups and are encouraged to collaborate in answering questions. They are encouraged to use all resources, including online, to find answers to their questions. Savvy instructors are aware that almost all textbook test banks can be found online and have moved to more case studies and essay questions for assessment to combat cheating. In a traditional classroom, collaborative work, followed by an individual essay or short answer assessment, will effectively test personal knowledge, but what about in the online environment?

The issues

The first issue in online testing is who is taking the test? Without any protective mechanisms in place, learners can easily share their username and password with someone else and have them take a test for them. How can you decrease the probability of this? Already available is proctoring software such as Respondus LockDown Browser. The instructor can have the test settings activated for both audio and video monitoring. Instructors can have learners show identification to their webcam,  submit a picture, then pan their environment with a camera, and keep the camera on for the duration of the test. Once the test begins, the webcam is hidden, and the learner frequently forgets that it is even present.

A newer technology in the works for maintaining the integrity of the online testing environment is keystroke monitoring. We all hit the keys on a keyboard at different paces and intensities. Monitoring this could likely identify whether someone other than the intended learner took the test. Both options bring up privacy concerns.

What is considered cheating?

As mentioned above, the definition of cheating can also be an issue, and instructors need to be very clear on what they consider cheating. Most list no collaborative work in their instructions, but what about the use of textbooks and notes? Using a lockdown browser implies that electronic resources are prohibited, but most students have a phone they could use to look up answers even when there is a lockdown browser. The lockdown browser prevents copying and pasting, but not looking up content.

One way an instructor could limit this without increasing their workload is to restrict the amount of time taking the test. Making it impossible to have enough time to look up content and complete the test could mitigate this problem. One recent class I took used this technique. Forty seconds were allotted for each question. Many students complained, but many others found it very effective. The instructor even provided research justifying his time limits using the reading speed of average students. 

One of the more definitive recent studies was done by Alessio, Malay, Mauer, Bailer, and Rubin in Online Learning (2017) in which the authors compared test scores and time to complete a test by students proctored by Respondus Lockdown Browser and those who were not proctored. Their results demonstrated a 14-20 point difference in average scores based on whether or not the tests were proctored. Besides the statistically significant grade spread, the authors found that students taking an unproctored test took significantly longer to complete the test.

What can an instructor do?

So, what can an instructor do? First, instead of copying the academic integrity policy into the syllabus, write a policy that pertains to your specific class. Saying that usage of an “unauthorized source” is prohibited is not helpful in this environment. If online sources, textbooks, or notes are or are not allowed, then specify this directly. Most students assume exams and quizzes are not group work, but some have been told they are “allowed to work together as long as they submit their own work.” What does this mean?

Be proactive in monitoring with a lockdown browser that requires the use of a webcam and showing identification. A lockdown browser alone is not sufficient when most learners have more than one piece of technology available. Write test questions that require critical thinking and interpretation, not recall information that can be searched for online. If all else fails, stipulate in your syllabus that the midterm and final need to be taken in a proctored room in a testing center or a university.