Is That Cheating? Students’ and Instructors’ Perceptions of Groupchats
Disciplines
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning | Social Psychology
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Academic misconduct has long been a concern in academia (McCabe et al., 2012) and appeared to worsen during COVID (Newton et al., 2024). Groupchat applications like GroupMe allow instant communication among many students, which may facilitate cheating. The extent to which students recognize cheating via groupchats as such is unclear. To address this gap, we compared students’ and instructors’ perceptions of what constituted cheating in GroupMe chats. Undergraduate students (n = 312) and instructors (n = 63) at the same university were randomly assigned to read one of four groupchats with one control (meeting up to study) and three cheating conditions (sharing exam questions, sharing exam answers, and taking the exam together). All participants reported the extent to which they perceived the groupchat as including academic violations. Additionally, students indicated how they would respond to the groupchat, and instructors indicated how they expected students would respond (cheating-supportive or cheating-resistant). We found that instructors perceived greater academic violations across the conditions in comparison to students, apart from the control condition (meeting to study). Participants rated meeting up to study as low in perceived violations and the three cheating conditions as being similarly high in perceived violations. Overall, instructors perceived greater violations across conditions than students did. Additionally, instructors tended to believe students were more likely to engage in cheating-supportive responses than students reported, and less likely to engage in cheating-resistant responses than students reported. Because perceptions of cheating predict actual cheating, some students may benefit from guidance regarding inappropriate use of GroupMe. Additionally, given that inaccurate beliefs, particularly those held by multiple individuals, can impact both subsequent perceptions and reality (Madon et al., 2011), making instructors aware of their potential biases may also be useful.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - Psychological Science
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Jennifer Willard
Is That Cheating? Students’ and Instructors’ Perceptions of Groupchats
Academic misconduct has long been a concern in academia (McCabe et al., 2012) and appeared to worsen during COVID (Newton et al., 2024). Groupchat applications like GroupMe allow instant communication among many students, which may facilitate cheating. The extent to which students recognize cheating via groupchats as such is unclear. To address this gap, we compared students’ and instructors’ perceptions of what constituted cheating in GroupMe chats. Undergraduate students (n = 312) and instructors (n = 63) at the same university were randomly assigned to read one of four groupchats with one control (meeting up to study) and three cheating conditions (sharing exam questions, sharing exam answers, and taking the exam together). All participants reported the extent to which they perceived the groupchat as including academic violations. Additionally, students indicated how they would respond to the groupchat, and instructors indicated how they expected students would respond (cheating-supportive or cheating-resistant). We found that instructors perceived greater academic violations across the conditions in comparison to students, apart from the control condition (meeting to study). Participants rated meeting up to study as low in perceived violations and the three cheating conditions as being similarly high in perceived violations. Overall, instructors perceived greater violations across conditions than students did. Additionally, instructors tended to believe students were more likely to engage in cheating-supportive responses than students reported, and less likely to engage in cheating-resistant responses than students reported. Because perceptions of cheating predict actual cheating, some students may benefit from guidance regarding inappropriate use of GroupMe. Additionally, given that inaccurate beliefs, particularly those held by multiple individuals, can impact both subsequent perceptions and reality (Madon et al., 2011), making instructors aware of their potential biases may also be useful.