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ABSTRACT The article documents students’ experiences with the shift online at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides informed recommendations to STEM instructors regarding academic integrity and student stress. Over 500 students were surveyed on these topics, including an open-ended question. Students experienced more stress and perceived a greater workload in online courses and therefore preferred in-person courses overall. Personal awareness of cheating during online exams is positively correlated with the proportion of cheating a student perceives. Fear of getting caught is the best cheating deterrent while getting a better grade makes cheating most enticing. Randomization of questions and answer choices is perceived as a highly effective tool to reduce cheating and is reported as the least stress-inducing method. Inability to backtrack and time limits cause students the most stress. Students report that multiple choice questions are the least effective question type to discourage cheating and oral exam questions cause the most stress. Use of camera and lockdown browser or being video- and audio- recorded caused the majority of student stress. Yet, nearly 60% agree that the combination of camera and lockdown browser is an effective deterrent. Recommendations: (i) Be transparent regarding academic dishonesty detection methods and penalties. (ii) Use online invigilating tools. (iii) Synchronize exams and (iv) randomize exam questions. (v) Allow backtracking. (vi) Avoid converting in-person exams to online exams; instead, explore new ways of designing exams for the online environment.
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Reconnecting Students and Faculty to Maximize Academic Integrity and Minimize Student Stress in the Virtual Classroom
ABSTRACT The article documents faculty experiences with the shift online due to the pandemic and provides recommendations to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instructors. Over 100 faculty members were surveyed on these topics and contrasted with previously reported student experiences. The online shift changed how faculty administered exams, ran courses, and acted to ensure academic integrity. For example, when exams went online, 73% of faculty reported spending more time preventing cheating. Concerning academic integrity and stress, faculty and students agreed with the exception of a few notable disconnects. Students reported greater workloads in online classes, while faculty maintained that the shift online did not change student workloads. Students perceived more online cheating than faculty. Overall, there seems to be a significant disconnect regarding faculty not realizing how much their actions may encourage or discourage cheating. Few faculty (<15%) indicated that being a tough grader or having test times too short is a motivating factor, but over 55% of students reported that these motivate students to cheat. Conversely, over 60% of students reported respect for their professors discourages them from cheating, while only 37% of faculty indicated the same. Over 70% of faculty and students indicated that fear of getting caught is a deterrent to cheating. Recommendations to reconnect include (i) faculty should use the finding that the number one deterrent of cheating is fear of getting caught; and (ii) faculty should maintain students’ respect by being clear or overestimating workload requirements, carefully adjusting time for online exams, and setting clear expectations with uncomplicated exam questions consistent with the material taught.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2120495
- PAR ID:
- 10356829
- Editor(s):
- Parks, Samantha T.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
- ISSN:
- 1935-7877
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00080-22
