It is important to note that there is a distinct difference between emergency remote instruction and pre-designed online course instruction, but the former has taught us several lessons about assessment. Instructors who engaged in emergency remote online teaching used behavioral strategies to mitigate cheating. These strategies ranged from changes in course design to open discussions concerning consequences.
Faculty also adapted by making changes in assessments, these tactics included the following:
- Using open-ended questions
- Creating pools of questions
- Creating “project-based” assignments
- Reducing or eliminating the use of multiple-choice questions
- Assigning more written essays
Remote proctoring, which had been a popular choice for some time prior to the pandemic, remained popular with 55% of faculty saying they used such software.
When surveyed students indicated three things that would reduce the likelihood of cheating: getting caught, knowing the consequences, and signing an honor code.
Students agree that the use of remote proctoring software reduces the likelihood of cheating. In fact, 69% of students surveyed said they are less likely to cheat if proctoring software is used. Understanding the consequences of getting caught cheating is also a factor for 51% of students. Those students said they would be less likely to cheat if the instructor listed the consequences within the syllabus. That same percentage of students, 51%, said having to sign an honor code would make them less likely to cheat, yet only 40% of faculty report making students sign such a document.
We’ve come out of the pandemic recognizing that there are now new norms and new understandings of what is acceptable and unacceptable in an academic setting. For instructors and those who develop instruction, we need to examine the way in which we are teaching and assessing learning going forward.
Humans are social creatures and require peer-to-peer interaction. Social accountability in a classroom is often the assumption we make that other people are “doing the right thing” and not cheating on someone else’s test and that to do so you could be “caught” and face embarrassment and academic punishment. Building a sense of online community is key to building academic integrity. Online teaching is not just taking lectures and recording them on Zoom. Faculty should create opportunities for academic discourse which itself will help lead to a sense of online community amongst peers. Preparation for such discussions can be guided by establishing guidelines and topics ahead of time.
