Abstracts
Abstract
One of the biggest challenges for online learning is upholding academic integrity in online assessments. In particular, institutions and faculties attach importance to exam security and academic dishonesty in the online learning process. The aim of this study was to compare the test-taking behaviors and academic achievements of students in proctored and unproctored online exam environments. The log records of students in proctored and unproctored online exam environments were compared using visualization and log analysis methods. The results showed that while a significant difference was found between time spent on the first question on the exam, total time spent on the exam, and the mean and median times spent on each question, there was no significant difference between the exam scores of students in proctored and unproctored groups. In other words, it has been observed that reliable exams can be conducted without the need for proctoring through an appropriate assessment design (e.g., using multiple low-stake formative exams instead of a single high-stake summative exam). The results will guide instructors in designing assessments for their online courses. It is also expected to help researchers in how exam logs can be analyzed and in extracting insights regarding students' exam-taking behaviors from the logs.
Keywords:
- test-taking behaviors,
- proctored exam,
- unproctored exam,
- formative assessment
Download the article in PDF to read it.
Download
Appendices
Bibliography
- Alessio, H. M., Malay, N., Maurer, K., Bailer, A. J., & Rubin, B. (2018). Interaction of proctoring and student major on online test performance. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i5.3698
- Alexandron, G., Wiltrout, M. E., Berg, A., Gershon, S. K., & Ruipérez-Valiente, J. A. (2022). The effects of assessment design on academic dishonesty, learner engagement, and certification rates in MOOCs. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 39(1), 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12733
- Alexandron, G., Yoo, L. Y., Ruipérez-Valiente, J. A., Lee, S., & Pritchard, D. E. (2019). Are MOOC learning analytics results trustworthy? With fake learners, they might not be! International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 29(4), 484–506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-019-00183-1
- Alin, P., Arendt, A., & Gurell, S. (2022). Addressing cheating in virtual proctored examinations: Toward a framework of relevant mitigation strategies. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 48(3), 262-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2022.2075317
- Analytic Hacettepe. (n.d.). Learning analytics portal. Retrieved November 2022, from http://analitik.hacettepe.edu.tr/raporlar/1
- Arnold, I. J. M. (2016). Cheating at online formative tests: Does it pay off? The Internet and Higher Education, 29, 98–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2016.02.001
- Balash, D. G., Kim, D., Shaibekova, D., Fainchtein, R. A., Sherr, M., & Aviv, A. J. (2021). Examining the examiners: Students’ privacy and security perceptions of online proctoring services [Paper presentation]. 17th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.
- Balderas, A., & Caballero-Hernández, J. A. (2021). Analysis of learning records to detect student cheating on online exams: Case study during COVID-19 pandemic [Paper presentation]. Eighth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality, Salamanca, Spain.
- Baleni, Z. (2015). Online formative assessment in higher education: Its pros and cons. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 13(4), 228–236.
- Becker, D. A., Connolly, J., Lentz, P., & Morrison, J. (2006). Using the business fraud triangle to predict academic dishonesty among business students. The Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 10, 37.
- Bin Mubayrik, H. F. (2020). New trends in formative-summative evaluations for adult education. SAGE Open, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020941006
- Bolliger, D. U., & Martin, F. (2021). Critical design elements in online courses. Distance Education, 42(3), 352–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2021.1956301
- Burke, D. D. S., Kenneth J. (2018). Applying the fraud triangle to higher education: Ethical implications. Journal of Legal Studies Education, 35(1), 5–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlse.12068
- Cantabella, M., López, B., Caballero, A., & Muñoz, A. (2018). Analysis and evaluation of lecturers’ activity in learning management systems: Subjective and objective perceptions. Interactive Learning Environments, 26(7), 911–923. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2017.1421561
- Chirumamilla, A., Sindre, G., & Nguyen-Duc, A. (2020). Cheating in e-exams and paper exams: The perceptions of engineering students and teachers in Norway. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(7), 940–957. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2020.1719975
- Coghlan, S., Miller, T., & Paterson, J. (2021). Good proctor or “big brother”? Ethics of online exam supervision technologies. Philosophy & Technology, 34(4), 1581–1606. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-021-00476-1
- Daffin, L. W., Jr., & Jones, A. A. (2018). Comparing student performance on proctored and non-proctored exams in online psychology courses. Online Learning, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v22i1.1079
- Dominguez, C., Garcia-Izquierdo, F. J., Jaime, A., Perez, B., Rubio, A. L., & Zapata, M. A. (2021). Using process mining to analyze time-distribution of self-assessment and formative assessment exercises on an online learning tool. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 4(5). https://doi.org/10.1109/TLT.2021.3119224
- Draaijer, S., Jefferies, A., & Somers, G. (2018). Online proctoring for remote examination: A state of play in higher education in the EU. In E. Ras & A. Guerrero Roldán (Eds) Technology enhanced assessment TEA 2017: Communications in computer and information science (Vol. 829). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97807-9_8
- Epoc Converter. (n.d). Epoch and Unix timestamp conversion tools. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://www.epochconverter.com/
- Fernandes, S., Flores, M. A., & Lima, R. M. (2012). Students’ views of assessment in project-led engineering education: Findings from a case study in Portugal. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 37(2), 163–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2010.515015
- Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., & Hyun, H. H. (2012). How to design and evaluate research in education. McGraw-Hill.
- Gikandi, J. W., Morrow, D., & Davis, N. E. (2011). Online formative assessment in higher education: A review of the literature. Computers & Education, 57(4), 2333–2351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.004
- Goedl, P. A., & Malla, G. B. (2020). A study of grade equivalency between proctored and unproctored exams in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 34(4), 280-–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2020.1796376
- Gurcan, F., Ozyurt, O., & Cagitay, N. E. (2021). Investigation of emerging trends in the e-learning field using latent Dirichlet allocation. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(2), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v22i2.5358
- Harmon, O. R., & Lambrinos, J. (2008). Are online exams an invitation to cheat? The Journal of Economic Education, 39(2), 116–125. https://doi.org/10.3200/JECE.39.2.116-125
- Hu, S., Jia, X., & Fu, Y. (2018). Research on abnormal behavior detection of online examination based on image information. In 10th International Conference on Intelligent Human-Machine Systems and Cybernetics (Vol. 2, pp. 88–91). Hangzhou, China. https://doi.org/10.1109/IHMSC.2018.10127
- Hui, B. (2023). Are they learning or guessing? Investigating trial-and-error behavior with limited test attempts [Paper presentation]. LAK23: 13th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, Arlington, Texas. https://doi.org/10.1145/3576050.3576068
- Jaramillo-Morillo, D., Ruipérez-Valiente, J., Sarasty, M. F., & Ramírez-Gonzalez, G. (2020). Identifying and characterizing students suspected of academic dishonesty in SPOCs for credit through learning analytics. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 17(1), 45. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00221-2
- Joshi, A., Vinay, M., & Bhaskar, P. (2021). Impact of coronavirus pandemic on the Indian education sector: Perspectives of teachers on online teaching and assessments. Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 18(2), 205–226. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITSE-06-2020-0087
- Lee, K., & Fanguy, M. (2022). Online exam proctoring technologies: Educational innovation or deterioration? British Journal of Educational Technology, 53(3), 475–490. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13182
- Man, K., Harring, J. R., Ouyang, Y., & Thomas, S. L. (2018). Response time based nonparametric Kullback-Leibler divergence measure for detecting aberrant test-taking behavior. International Journal of Testing, 18(2), 155–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/15305058.2018.1429446
- Martin, F., Bolliger, D. U., & Flowers, C. (2021). Design matters: Development and validation of the online course design elements (OCDE) instrument. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(2), 46–71. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v22i2.5187
- Nigam, A., Pasricha, R., Singh, T., & Churi, P. (2021). A systematic review on AI-based proctoring systems: Past, present and future. Education and Information Technologies, 26(5), 6421–6445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10597-x
- Noorbehbahani, F., Mohammadi, A., & Aminazadeh, M. (2022). A systematic review of research on cheating in online exams from 2010 to 2021. Education and Information Technologies, 27(6), 8413–8460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-10927-7
- Oosterhof, A., Conrad, R. M., & Ely, D. P. (2008). Assessing learners online. Pearson.
- Pelanek, R. (2021). Analyzing and visualizing learning data: A system designer’s perspective. Journal of Learning Analytics, 8(2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2021.7345
- Rios, J. A., & Liu, O. L. (2017). Online proctored versus unproctored low-stakes Internet test administration: Is there differential test-taking behavior and performance? American Journal of Distance Education, 31(4), 226–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2017.1258628
- Shbail, M. O., Alshurafat, H., Ananzeh, H., & Al-Msiedeen, J. M. (2022). Dataset of factors affecting online cheating by accounting students: The relevance of social factors and the fraud triangle model factors. Data in Brief, 40, 107732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2021.107732
- Singh, U. G., & de Villiers, M. R. (2017). An evaluation framework and instrument for evaluating e-assessment tools. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(6). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i6.2804
- Slack, H. R., & Priestley, M. (2022). Online learning and assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic: Exploring the impact on undergraduate student well-being. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 48(3), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2022.2076804
- Soffer, T., Kahan, T., & Livne, E. (2017). E-assessment of online academic courses via students’ activities and perceptions. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 83–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.10.001
- Snekalatha, S., Marzuk, S. M., Meshram, S. A., Maheswari, K. U., Sugapriya, G., & Sivasharan, K. (2021). Medical students’ perception of the reliability, usefulness and feasibility of unproctored online formative assessment tests. Advances in Physiology Education, 45(1), 84–88. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00178.2020
- Stowell, J. R., & Bennett, D. (2010). Effects of online testing on student exam performance and test anxiety. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 42(2), 161–171. https://doi.org/10.2190/EC.42.2.b
- Thelwall, M. (2000). Computer-based assessment: A versatile educational tool. Computers & Education, 34(1), 37–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0360-1315(99)00037-8
- Tiong, L. C. O., & Lee, H. J. (2021). e-Cheating prevention measures: Detection of cheating at online examinations using deep learning approach, a case study, ArXiv Preprint. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2101.09841.
- Traoré, I., Nakkabi, Y., Saad, S., Sayed, B., Ardigo, J. D., & de Faria Quinan, P. M. (2017). Ensuring online exam integrity through continuous biometric authentication. In I. Traoré, A. Awad, & I. Woungang (Eds.), Information security practices: Emerging threats and perspectives (pp. 73–81). Springer.
- Trezise, K., Ryan, T., de Barba, P., & Kennedy, G. (2019). Detecting academic misconduct using learning analytics. Journal of Learning Analytics, 6(3), 90–104. https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2019.63.11
- Tripathi, A. M., Kasana, R., Bhandari, R., & Vashishtha, N. (2022). Online examination system [Paper presentation]. Fifth International Conference on Smart Trends in Computing and Communications, SmartCom, Singapore.
- Vegendla, A., & Sindre, G. (2019). Mitigation of cheating in online exams: Strengths and limitations of biometric authentication. In A. V. S. Kumar (Ed.), Biometric authentication in online learning environments (pp. 47–68). IGI Global.
- Vlachopoulos, D. (2016). Assuring quality in e-learning course design: The roadmap. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(6). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i6.2784
- Yazici, S., Yildiz Durak, H., Aksu Dünya, B., & Şentürk, B. (2023). Online versus face-to-face cheating: The prevalence of cheating behaviours during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic among Turkish University students. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 39(1), 231–254. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12743