Cheating Online?

Experts have found that 50-75% of students self-report cheating at some point in their academic careers (Burrus, McGoldrick, & Schuhmann, 2007). While many studies report that students and teachers believe there is more cheating in online courses, in actuality, cheating in online courses is equivalent to the level of cheating in face-to-face courses (Miller & Young-Jones, 2012). There is nothing about online students or the online environment that makes cheating more likely; however, we do need to understand what academic cheating is and how it might occur.

Designing for Honesty

The part that we need to understand is what motivates students - both face-to-face and online - to cheat. In an essay for the Boston Globe, How College Classes Encourage Cheating, James M. Lang (2013) explored cheating by college students, finding that the testing environment we build may have a role in cheating. Additionally, when we rely solely on a few high stakes tests in our courses, students may feel more pressure, and thus more "need" to cheat. Lang (2013) concludes that "frequent assessment, coupled with a firm and consistent academic integrity policy, will help reduce cheating."

In the end, whether our students are online students or traditional students, some may be compelled to cheat. Part of this might be, however, that the nature of "knowing" is changing. Just as technology is changing our classes, it is changing how we consume and digest information. With facts available in mobile devices in our pockets, we no longer have to spend limited brain power memorizing "facts." Instead, we may want to consider shifting our emphasis from memorizing facts that can be easily googled, to strengthening strategies for critical thinking and analysis.

student stressed out staring at laptop

Strategies to Discourage Cheating

As Farrell (2015) notes, there are many strategies that help students leverage online tools and information while still providing challenging assessments. Here are a few more tips for designing thoughtful assessments:

Assess student ability to analyze complex information by including charts, tables, and/or graphs into the exam. Under these conditions, students will be required the to interpret and analyze the data ‘in the moment.’ This will offer a clearer understanding of how students have absorbed course content.
Integrate examples, stories, or case studies throughout the exam to measure the learners’ ability to comprehend and apply content.
Include detailed examples that students would be required to evaluate prior to answering specific multiple-choice questions. Arranging questions in this manner not only reduces risk, but it also addresses the possibility of “guessing," and the extent to which students are able to engage in comprehension and application skills.
Develop questions that assess multilevel thinking

Another strategy to reduce the potential for cheating in online assessments is to include questions that contain wording such as “the most appropriate” or “most important." These types of questions will measure students’ judgment skills, or understanding, of in-depth subject matter. For example in a nursing class, you could present students with a scenario of a patient seeking medical services detailing a set of specific symptoms and then ask the students to apply the most appropriate theory to the development of a treatment plan for the patient.

While instructors can take a variety of actions to help reduce the possibility of cheating in online assessments, studies have consistently found that students are less likely to cheat if course policies and consequences for cheating are clearly articulated and appropriately administered (Burrus, McGoldrick & Schuhmann, 2007). In the white paper "Are your online students really the ones registered for the course? Student authentication requirements for distance education providers." WCET provides the following recommendations to reduce cheating:

Use multiple assessment techniques instead of relying on one single technique.
Incorporate more reliance on written essays and discussions.
Use a test bank that randomly draws questions from a large bank.
Clearly articulate appropriate academic behavior.

Burrus, T., McGoldrick, K., & Schuhmann, P.W. (2007). Self-reports of student cheating: Does a definition of cheating Matter? The Journal of Economic Education, 38(1), 3-16.

Farrell, M. (2015, March 18). Want to stop cheating on online quizzes? Let them cheat!

Lang, J.M. (2013). Cheating lessons: Learning from academic dishonesty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Miller, A., & Young-Jones, A. D. (2012). Academic integrity: Online classes compared to face-to-face classes. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 39(3-4), 138-145.

Image: "Full focus at a coffee shop" by Tim Gouw is in the Public Domain, CC0