EFL Female Students’ Perceptions towards Cheating in Distance Learning Programmes

Abstract

Distance education is becoming more demanding at universities all around the world in general and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in particular, than ever before. This study aimed at highlighting the students’ perceptions of cheating on distance learning at King Abdulaziz University (KAU). The study will further explore the ways they use to cheat, causes for cheating, and some solutions to minimize cheating. This study was conducted at the end of the second semester in 2019. Data was collected from 57 female distance learning students who graduated from the English Language Department (ELD) at KAU. A mixed-methods research design was adopted in this study via a custom designed, fifteen closed ended and one, open ended item questionnaire. The quantitative section was analysed by frequency and percentages and the open-ended questions were analysed thematically. The results indicated that the majority of female students cheated by helping each other, obtain the correct answers from another student or send the correct responses to all their classmates. Another way which some students admitted they used was using electronic websites to copy and paste the answers in the test’s screen. The study further concluded that reasons for cheating in distance learning programs were due to technical problems, frequent absence of virtual classes, and wanting grades, not necessarily knowledge. Recommendations for the possible solutions to eliminate cheating, the participants recommended increasing the students’ awareness of cheating policy and finding solutions to technological issues.

Cheating in Online Learning Programs: Learners’ Perceptions and Solutions

“…Literature includes some works which determined several ways learners already used to cheat in online courses. For example, learners were more likely to obtain answers from others during an online test (Saleh & Meccawy, 2021;Watson & Sottile, 2010). Other found ways of online cheating include students' dishonest collaboration and sharing assignments with one another (Hearn Moore, Head, & Griffin, 2017;McGee, 2013;Sendag, Duran, & Fraser, 2012) as well as copying the information from the Internet or other learners' answers (Diego, 2017;Golden & Kohlbeck, 2020;Hosny & Fatima, 2014;Saleh & Meccawy, 2021).…”

“…For instance, lack of responsibility, laziness, lack of respect for academic rules, and showing no interest or being unwilling to study as well as low self-esteem are the most important internal reasons (Diego, 2017). In addition, peer influence (Diego, 2017), getting passing grades, not necessarily knowledge (Saleh & Meccawy, 2021), getting passing grades to please their parents (Diego, 2017;Finchilescu & Cooper, 2018;Hosny & Fatima, 2014;Jian, H., Li & Wang, 2020), the exam difficulty, not being able to prepare for the exam (Diego, 2017;Hosny & Fatima, 2014), non-existence of punishment or consequences when being caught cheating (Diego, 2017;Hosny & Fatima, 2014;Jones, 2011;Peled, Eshet, Barczyk, & Grinautski, 2019;Yang, Huang, & Chen, 2013), being absent from lessons (Hosny & Fatima, 2014;Saleh & Meccawy, 2021), lack of study time, willingness to help friends (Hosny & Fatima, 2014), and technical problems occurring during an online exam (Saleh & Meccawy, 2021) are among the external causes. Diego (2017) reported the reasons that students had for their cheating.…”

“…Condemning academic dishonesty must not merely rest in the enrollment forms but by constant moral reminder and intervention of teachers who have a responsibility to hone learners ' decorum on honesty and maturity. (p. 122) Solving the problem of cheating in online education is essential to alleviate this concern and implement the online programs effectively (Saleh & Meccawy, 2021). Furthermore, academic dishonesty is not a new concept, yet online examinations require different strategies in comparison to the traditional tactics (Michael & Williams, 2013).…”

“…Most recently, Saleh and Meccawy (2021) explored 57 English language female graduates' perceptions of cheating on a distance learning program at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), their ways of cheating, causes for cheating, and some solutions to minimize cheating. The researchers found that the majority of female students cheated by helping each other, obtaining the correct answers from or sending the correct answers to the other students, and using websites to copy and paste the answers into their tests.…”

“…Moreover, online instruction has been utilized worldwide by many educational institutions due to the requirement of social distancing under the Covid-19 pandemic to both protect the learners' health and not interrupt their academic studies (Gunes, 2020;Hodges, Moore, Lockee, Trust, & Bond, 2020). Nevertheless, online instruction can include several problems, such as lack of live interactions with peers and their teachers (Dumford & Miller, 2018;Kim, Liu, & Bonk, 2005), lack of opportunity to obtain feedback or receive answers to their questions in real time (Kim et al, 2005), the shorter time of virtual classes, and more opportunities to cheat (Corrigangibbs, Gupta, Northcutt, Cutrell, & Thies, 2015;Nguyen, Keuseman, & Humston, 2020;Raines et al, 2011;Saleh & Meccawy, 2021;Watson & Sottile, 2010).…”