The effects of privacy-non-invasive interventions on cheating prevention and user experience in unproctored online assessments: An empirical study

Preventing cheating without invading test-takers’ privacy in high-stakes online summative assessments poses a challenge, especially when the assessment is remote and unproctored. We conducted a between-subjects experiment (N = 997) in a realistic online test simulation to investigate the effects of three privacy-non-invasive anti-cheating interventions (honor code reminder, warning message, and monitoring message) on cheating prevention from a user-centered perspective. The quantitative results indicated that, compared to a control condition, displaying a honor code reminder during an online test worked best in lowering the odds of cheating. None of the interventions affected user experience and test-taking self-efficacy significantly. Further open-ended questions revealed that interventions can cause distraction which in turn could potentially evoke negative emotions. The decision to cheat was influenced by the extent to which interventions conveyed that cheating is wrong and also by test-takers’ perception of getting caught if they cheated. We derived recommendations for a fair and cheating-preventive unproctored online assessment for researchers and practitioners. •Anti-Cheating interventions presented during unproctored tests can prevent cheating•Unproctored anti-cheating interventions do not affect UX or test-taking self-efficacy•Restoring moral rules through interventions may help in preventing cheating•Design of interventions should consider ways to minimize distractions during tests•Cheating is detected using trap websites considering browser and device switches