Students’ Perceptions of and Behaviors Toward Cheating in Online Education

Online education is pushing universities to search for technologies that can support e-assessment. Opinions and behaviors of stakeholders are required in order to develop such technologies. This paper underlines the need for mechanisms to prevent cheating and increase security, by analyzing the differences between students' perceptions of cheating and the acts of academic dishonesty they commit, contributing to fill a gap in the literature on cheating behaviors in online education. The research questions are: RQ1) Are students aware of what constitutes cheating in online education? RQ2) Do students believe that an e-authentication system may increase their security and prevent cheating? RQ3) Would the use of an e-authentication system for assessment increase students' trust? RQ4) What are students' real cheating behaviors? 154 students taking an online course from the Computer Engineering and Telecommunications degree consented to participate in the study. The research instruments were two surveys, and two tools of the course (an intelligent tutoring system and an image plagiarism detection tool). Results show that the fact students know an e-authentication and authoring system is used may prevent cheating and make students feel more confident. The findings have significant implications for institutions interested in e-assessment secure systems.