College Students Cheating On Online Exams
Covid-19’s pandemic has caused an unprecedented surge in online exam cheating by students. Students often use group chats to easily share answers or post notes onto screens or keyboards for later review; some also search answers using Google.
Proctoring companies such as ProctorU previously detected cheating in less than 1 percent of test takes before the pandemic hit; now however, over 8 percent are being caught! Explore more about this increase in student cheating and its effect on academic integrity within colleges.
Why do students cheat?
Online education has provided some students with a tremendous boost, yet has also opened the door for cheating opportunities. Many colleges were unprepared for the transition and couldn’t afford to implement safeguards; others weren’t willing to change with it either, leading to cheating being more prevalent among students taking online classes.
Cheating on online exams by college students may occur for various reasons. Some do it to gain an advantage; others are simply looking for the easiest way to pass a class. Other motives could include being overwhelmed or stressed out by online experiences, social isolation during pandemic outbreaks or lack of in-person support during tests that take place online.
Students also face increased strain during pandemics due to limited access to tutoring services and academic resources, leading to feelings of inadequacy, stress, and leading them into dishonest behaviors that lead to dishonest acts.
Professors often sympathize with cheaters and allow them to pass an exam despite having been caught, often because the penalties for cheating are too minor or because they do not want their actions to undermine the experience for other students.
Even when schools use anti-cheating tools such as face recognition software to combat cheating, students still manage to bypass it by covering their heads or turning away briefly during tests; additionally they use calculators which plug answers directly into answers which is difficult for face recognition software to pick up on.
Additionally, some students take breaks during exams to open notes or text friends for assistance – particularly online tests where it may be harder for professors to keep tabs on student activity.
Cheating tools such as Chegg and Course Hero have become popular online cheating platforms, offering students easy ways to cheat with study guides marketed as study aids while simultaneously becoming popular for cheating online. Students can easily search their specific topic on these platforms and quickly locate answers posted by other students; YouTube also hosts many videos teaching how to quickly type web browser pages or use specific keyboard shortcuts quickly.
Is it easy to cheat online?
Students increasingly taking exams online have found new ways to cheat: using smartphones for search and reference functions; accessing electronic textbooks or notes from personal writing files hidden beneath shoes for quick reference; or simply memorizing personal written notes that they keep secret until it comes time to take an exam. All without being witnessed by proctors or invigilators.
Students taking online exams often adopt an “answer, pass the class, and move on” mentality that encourages cheating to make up for lack of study and preparation. Cheaters can easily mask their activity from professors and proctors by using proxy servers that mask their IP addresses – this feature is especially helpful in countries with prevalent Internet censorship.
Some students with advanced programming knowledge can take advantage of their technical know-how to exploit an online exam to cheat by hacking the test and finding correct answers as code. Although this method of cheating may be riskier and more advanced, it’s certainly possible for those familiar with computers and coding.
Many online students rely on remote proctoring companies to ensure they do not cheat during exams, but these services cannot guarantee 100% reliability. Proctoring software may detect suspicious activity such as extra noises on student devices; however, there may still be ways around it.
One way students cheat during online exams is by taking photos or screenshots of exam content and sharing it with other students – an act which has come to be known as academic infidelity or “charity cheating”, since students who engage in such behavior believe they are helping their fellow classmates rather than breaking any laws or being dishonest themselves.
Another way students cheat during an online exam is to take a short break and use notes or devices to access answers they already know. They can do this by pretending they have poor Internet connections or needing the bathroom; alternatively they could ask a friend to sit in for them so they can access materials more easily.
Do students feel anonymous online?
Online students often manage to get away with cheating during online exams because they do not need to present themselves directly to a proctor. Instead, they can hide behind a computer screen, take notes on bodily areas such as arms and hands or use devices such as cameras to record themselves throughout the exam – technology to do this is readily available and affordable for many students.
Some colleges even permitted students to use drones and other equipment during the Covid pandemic, leading to an increase in academic misconduct as students used these technologies to cheat during online classes. Professors can try catching cheaters in online classes by asking students to remove exam materials; but this process could prove time consuming requiring visits to each site in search of material.
Cheating during an online exam is also possible by sharing questions or answers via websites or group chats – this practice is known as “open-book” cheating, and considered academic misconduct. A number of faculty members have complained about students leaking exams onto third-party sites during the Covid pandemic; professors also have expressed displeasure with this behavior by posting exam answers publicly on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter.
One academic dishonesty researcher believes the rise in online cheating is tied to increased stress among students in courses and the emphasis placed on grades. She noted that students may engage in academic dishonesty more readily if assessments involve high stakes assessments or they feel incapable of performing up to task.
Some students feel like they’re competing with their classmates for grades and that there is no correlation between learning and grades and grades earned. Some may also believe they can cheat and plagiarize without getting caught because the penalties for online tests are less severe.
Researchers have noted that students taking online exams may be more inclined to cheat when they do not perceive that their teachers are watching them closely. Furthermore, some have busy lives and need to earn their degrees online because of other commitments such as children or full-time jobs; cheating allows these students to complete their degree faster while reducing risks such as failing, being put on probation or getting kicked out of school.
What are the consequences of cheating?
Students caught engaging in cheating can face severe disciplinary measures, which include lower grades, suspension or expulsion from school and having their academic or professional reputation marred. Students caught cheating online exams may also be banned from taking repeat attempts and may not be permitted to pursue degrees related to that field of study.
One of the primary challenges associated with online tests is catching students cheating; it is much harder to see their faces or hand gestures when taking tests from home.
Students can use multiple browser tabs to cheat during exams. While education platforms allow professors to detect tab switching, Respondus, Honorlock and ProctorU offer lockdown browsers which prevent users from opening additional tabs during an exam. Unfortunately, such measures only flag suspicious activities – a human proctor must investigate it further before concluding whether or not they constitute cheating.
Students often collaborate during online tests in various ways to answer questions more quickly and accurately, including sharing screens or discussing answers in chat rooms, hearing answers through microphone or phone call from partners, listening to recordings of previous tests taken by colleagues or listening to recordings from previous exams to get an idea of the answers that should be provided, etc.
Other forms of cheating during an exam include using illegal materials, such as pencil or pen tapping, dropping items, listening in on third party conversations whispered behind the camera, or other suspicious actions (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014). Furthermore, students familiar with coding can use software to hack an online exam and display it in code form; this enables them to identify correct answers by looking for patterns within 1s and 0s (Srikanth & Asmatulu, 2014).
Internal factors that lead to cheating on online exams include desire for performance excellence, parental pressure, low work ethics and stress tolerance levels, lack of motivation and poor work ethics (Sarmiento & Manalotto 2018). Instructors need to do all they can to keep students engaged with their education – studies have proven that those engaged with learning perform much better on both physical and online exams than those not as engaged.