Cheating in e-exams and paper exams: the perceptions of engineering students and teachers in Norway

Abstract

A concern that has been raised with the transition from pen and paper examinations to electronic examinations is whether this will make cheating easier. This article investigates how teachers and students perceive the differences in ease of cheating during three types of written examination: paper exams, bring your own device e-exams and e-exams using university-owned devices. It also investigates perceptions about the effectiveness of some typical countermeasures towards cheating across these examination types. A mixed-method approach was used, combining questionnaires and interviews with students and teachers in the authors’ own university. A total of 212 students and 162 teachers participated in the questionnaire survey, and then, a more limited number were interviewed to get a deeper understanding of the results. Six different cheating practices were considered – impersonation, forbidden aids, peeking, peer collaboration, outside assistance and student–staff collusion and seven different countermeasures were considered – proctors, biometry, mingling, shuffling, random drawing, sequencing and broadcasting. Both students and teachers perceived cheating as easier with e-exams, and especially with bring your own device. They also thought some countermeasures would be easier to implement with e-exams.