Academic integrity of university students during emergency remote online assessment: An exploration of student voices

Abstract

Background: This article examines the phenomenon of academic integrity during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with particular reference to emergency online assessments in 2020.Aim: It explores academic dishonesty, cheating and plagiarism of university students during emergency remote online assessment, from the perspective of South African students.Setting and Methodology: The authors explore the approaches of different universities worldwide, as well as the extant literature on the topic. An examination of the current literature related explicitly to the COVID-19 online assessments reveals a dearth of engagement by researchers in the South African context. In order to address this lacuna, the authors rely on data generated from an institutional forum on academic dishonesty at a University in South Africa. It focuses specifically on the voices of students presented during the forum, which explained both why students are dishonest and ways to curb dishonesty.Results and Conclusion: The data generated show whilst some students were dishonest due to pandemic-related issues (like lack of monitoring), there are also other reasons, such as lack of time management, feeling overwhelmed and stressed and struggling with technology that contributes to student dishonesty. Students suggest that assessments be approached differently online to curb academic dishonesty. The paper concludes by providing some fundamental changes needed to address academic dishonesty.

Academic Integrity of Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Method Analysis

“…Thus, the student's time and attention were divided between their job and studies. This result coincided with Verhoef and Coetser (2021) It can be noted that during COVID-19, a flexible learning modality was adopted. Hence, students stayed at home and made home and self-study.…”

A systematic review of academic dishonesty in online learning environments

“…Fear of failure encourages students to cheat (Underwood & Szabo, 2003). Student's subjective reasons which included lack of time management, feeling stressed and struggling with technology also drive up their AD (Verhoef & Coetser, 2021). We should systematically apply more intelligent technology to support students' personalized learning, which includes the diagnosis and analysis of individual learning processes, to build a data‐based process evaluation.…”

“…AD, as any type of fraudulent academic behaviour, typically includes actions such as plagiarism, cheating, falsification, improper collaboration and homework copying (Lambert et al, 2003). And students who conducted AD behaviour often have an unfair advantage over other students (Verhoef & Coetser, 2021). There is no doubt that the advent of the Internet and the development of user-friendly devices have attracted the faculty's concern in the study of students' unethical behaviour, from "cutting and pasting" a few unauthorized sentences to purchasing a ghost-written essay.…”

The enhancement of academic integrity through a community of practice at the North-West University, South Africa

“…In the South African context, various articles were also published on academic integrity since the outbreak of Covid-19. For example, Verhoef and Coetser ( 2021 ) explored student voices about remote online assessments, Mutongoza ( 2021 ) focused on the impetus for cheating, and Verhoef et al ( 2020 ) examined the disruption of the pandemic regarding our existence and how this can also be an impetus for cheating and academic dishonesty. The focus of Baboolal-Frank ( 2021 ) is not so much on academic integrity, but rather on learning processes and methodologies during emergency remote learning.…”