ABSTRACT
BackgroundDuring the COVID‐19 period, academics and higher education institutions have shown deep concern about academic integrity related to measurement and evaluation issues that have arisen in online education.ObjectivesTo address this concern, this paper examined the prevalence of cheating behaviour among university students before and during the pandemic by comparing self‐reported cheating behaviours of students and academics' perceived levels of cheating behaviours of their students.MethodsA correlational design was employed aligned with study objectives.Results and ConclusionsThe results indicate that although both groups reported a significant increase in cheating incidents in online education, instructors' perceived frequency of student cheating is remarkably greater than students' self‐report cheating incidents. Contrary to the perceptions of instructors and stakeholders in education, students did not report a very drastic cheating increase in online education during the pandemic. The strongest predictive power for online cheating behaviours was the cheating behaviours in face‐to‐face education. Whereas the sensitivity of institutions and course instructors toward cheating behaviour was negatively associated with cheating behaviours in face‐to‐face education, this situational factor did not show a significant effect in distance education. Regarding individual factors, we found a significant relationship between cheating behaviours and gender, discipline, whereas no significant relationship was found in terms of student GPA. Consequently, in order to minimize the threats to the validity of scores associated with cheating, faculty should be supported through faculty development programs and resources so that they can develop authentic assessment strategies for measuring higher‐order thinking skills.Alternate :Lay DescriptionWhat is already known about this topicThe COVID‐19 period created an abrupt shift in learning conditions and measurement processes.Educational administrators and teachers have also shown deep concern about academic integrity related to measurement and evaluation issues that have arisen in distance education during the pandemic period.Previous studies investigating the factors affecting students' academic dishonesty in traditional cheating behaviours have primarily focused on individual and situational factors.What this paper addsThe online education process caused an increase in cheating behaviour scores.There is a substantial range between students and instructors' responses about online cheating during the pandemic.Cheating behaviour in face‐to‐face education significantly explains cheating behaviour in online education. Cheaters in face‐to‐face education are also cheaters in online education.The sensitivity shown by university and course instructors toward cheating yielded a mixed result in online and face‐to‐face education.In online and face‐to‐face education settings, cheating behaviour scores of female students are lower than male students.Students with lower GPA scores generally have higher cheating behaviours.Implications for practice and/or policyIndividual and contextual factors are major determinants of cheating behaviours.In order to minimize the threats on validity of scores associated with cheating, faculty should be supported through faculty development programs and resources so that they can develop authentic assessment strategies for measuring higher‐order thinking skills.This study fills an important gap in the available literature on cheating before and during COVID‐19.The study has a potential to guide higher education institutions for planning and initiating strategies to address cheating in short and long term.
ABSTRACT
BackgroundOnline learning has grown significantly during the past two decades, and COVID‐19 pandemic has expedited this process. However, previous research has shown how academic dishonesty is more prevalent under these modalities. Therefore, there is the challenge of performing trustworthy remote assessments, in order to obtain valid and reliable measures of students' knowledge.ObjectivesThe research question that drove this research was: what actions have been proposed in contemporary research to improve remote assessment trustworthiness from a technological and pedagogical perspective?MethodsWe analysed the papers accepted for the special issue titled ‘Trustworthy Assessment and Academic Integrity in Remote Learning’ following a deductive qualitative category coding methodology to find the main approaches.Results and conclusionsWe identified eight approaches to improve trustworthiness in remote assessment: four for exams and high‐stake tests, one exclusively for performance‐based assessments, and three for any type of assessment. Our findings shift attention from academic dishonesty to trustworthy assessment, integrating recent findings of papers accepted to this special issue.ImplicationsOur findings deepen current understanding of trustworthy remote assessments, inviting practitioners and researchers to explore different types of assessment methods and different moments related to assessing learning.Alternate :Lay DescriptionWhat is already known about this topic?Online learning has grown significantly during the last decade.This growth increases the need for online assessment methods that can provide a valid, reliable, and fair measure of student knowledge.Research demonstrated the prevalence of academic dishonesty in online learning.There is a timely need to research and develop methods for trustworthy online assessment, as well as to raise the awareness of researchers, practitioners, and administrators, to the topic and to the solutions at hand.What this paper adds?A review of the state‐of‐the‐art with respect to trustworthy assessment in online learning.A typology of strategies to improve trustworthy assessment, characterizing the pedagogical approach, technological method, context, and type of assessment.An analysis of different solutions, approaches, and case studies, with respect to the proposed typology.A novel approach to inform the design and implementation of valid and reliable online assessment.The implications for practitionersThe paper presents strategies and approaches for implementing trustworthy assessment in online learning.The paper provides a conceptual framework that can inform the design of valid and reliable assessments methods, and analyse both existing and newly proposed onesHighlighting the importance of including the assessment as an integral part of the instructional design phase of online learning offerings.