Abstract:

Over the past two decades academic dishonesty had been gaining more attention as universities looked to online learning as a new method for increasing enrollment and providing additional opportunities for non-traditional students. During the pandemic, online learning became the norm, and teachers across the globe had to adjust to a new way of presenting material and assessing student learning. With so many students now engaging in online learning, it is now even more important to understand the ways in which students may engage in dishonest behavior and also what mechanisms are available to ensure that students are complying with the rules. The goal of this paper is to review the literature on academic dishonesty in the online environment and to provide an analysis of what areas need additional focus. The paper first reviews the most common reasons for why students cheat in the online environment and then provides a list of cheating methods that have been highly cited in the literature. Next, a list of methods that have been employed to curtail cheating both pre- and post-pandemic will be defined and analyzed. Finally, the paper will seek to review how cheating prevention mechanisms are working and what new areas of prevention are being considered given the influx of online learners in the past three years.

Keywords:

Online cheating, academic dishonesty, pandemic.