Online Learning: More Fraud than Fruit?

Students, in online classes, find themselves cheating more often during examinations. Springfield has announced that due to the pandemic, online school could last until December 2020 and possibly even longer. This proves advantageous for students as they are able to cheat in order to improve their academic performance.

On 13th March 2020, students learned that from thereafter, they would be studying online from the safety of their homes – to the relief of anxious parents. Due to the rapid growth in the number of COVID-19 cases, President Joko Widodo imposed a closure on schools and universities to reduce the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, schools are still closed and children are studying through “home-based learning” six months later.

According to a 2018 survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed (IHE), it is suggested that 60% of faculty members believe that academic fraud is more common in online courses than face-to-face courses. Due to teachers’ inability to proctor their students, they can easily fall for the idea that cheating is rampant and single out an innocent student. Not to mention, the PB3 school campus welcomed a new batch of students who remain unknown to the teachers. Thus, the student and teacher relationship finds new obstacles that make their journey through this “new normal” far more unstable.

Although students are expected to be candid during these tests, students fail to live up to these expectations due to the fear of failure or admonition from their parents. There is a breach of trust between the student and teachers and honesty is the key to mending it. “I find it difficult to observe whether students are being honest or not. So, I don’t expect anything from them as I believe they can all be responsible and mature. In the end, one-by-one they can all be trustable,” said a Springfield teacher who has experience in invigilating online tests.

The question remains on how to restore the broken bond between the student and teacher. “They should not think of the best way to cheat, so the teachers also don’t think that the students would try to cheat. The two parties can understand how to get through this process, which is basically a normal process. In my class, I always tell them that you have to do your best to get a good grade. The only thing they have to do is trust me, and I can help them with their scores if they give the same effort,” said a Springfield teacher who has also supervised online tests.

By establishing a trust between the student and teacher, students would be more proactive and flourish academically, socially and emotionally. An analysis of 46 studies carried out by the Review of Educational Research concluded that a strong teacher-student relationship was associated with short and long-term improvements in all aspects of school: higher levels of productivity, attendance, grades, behaviour, and lower school dropout rates.

The lack of trust can lead to many misunderstandings and conflicts between an innocent student and a cautious teacher. On the contrary, students are also guilty of the crimes that they’ve been accused of. Teachers have come across many cases in which students have formed alliances and worked together in completing the test. In order to resolve this conflict, some teachers have either confronted the students separately and tried to search for a solution as to how to improve their learning process; students have complained about not understanding due to the lack of face-to-face interaction. Hence, teachers have made it clear to students that they are available during school hours to go over the lesson at their own pace and answer any queries.

In the future, students can expect stricter regulations and rules during online assessments such as the “Proctorio” extension. The Proctorio extension is able to detect any misconduct as it records the student’s face; it is a better alternative to exam.net as students do not have to worry about having to change their notification settings or accidentally scrolling out of the page. Furthermore, it can put an end to the rampant cheating and dishonesty of many students. Websites like Schoology, Google Forms, and many others simply won’t work against the student’s will to cheat. The ban itself must be enforced through the platform the students use. Furthermore, students and teachers should reestablish their trust for one another by communicating with each other and creating a foolproof method of studying in order to avoid cheating.