Promoting Academic Integrity and Student Learning in Online Biology Courses
Open accessAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an abrupt shift in biology courses, with many transitioning to online instruction. This has led to an increased concern about academic integrity and cheating in online courses.
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The absence of observed increased cheating supports the notion that students are more focused on genuine collaboration during collaborative exams rather than searching for easy answers.
“However, although we did not actively investigate the occurrence of academic dishonesty, we also did not observe any evidence of increased cheating, which supports the notion that students are more focused on genuine collaboration during collaborative exams rather than searching for easy answers (Hsu, 2021;Rieger & Heiner, 2014).”
From Active learning through flexible collaborative exams: Improving assessments across disciplines (2026) · cites this paper as Hsu, 2021
In “Structure assessments carefully” (page unavailable), Hsu says two-stage exams allow group collaboration and suggests students might cheat less when they know they will have a chance to collaborate. Hsu also says they know of no work examining cheating in two-stage exams; the paper does not report an observed lack of increased cheating or establish that students favor genuine collaboration over easy answers. The citing authors’ observation is their own, not Hsu’s. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe literature suggests that even during open-book two-stage exams, students discuss the exam rather than search for answers.
“While one might think students could use the easing of instructor oversight to search for solutions using outside resources during an asynchronous collaborative exam, the literature suggests that even during open-book two-stage exams, students discuss the exam rather than search for answers (Hsu, 2021;Rieger & Heiner, 2014).”
From Active learning through flexible collaborative exams: Improving assessments across disciplines (2026) · cites this paper as Hsu, 2021
In “Structure assessments carefully” (page unavailable), Hsu says two-stage exams allow group collaboration but knows of no work examining their effect on cheating. The open-book-exams section suggests that open-book formats may reduce use of unauthorized resources, but does not report whether students discuss exam questions rather than search for answers. Neither passage establishes the attributed comparison. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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Cites
Wang, X., Hegde, S., Son, C., Keller, B., Smith, A., & Sasangohar, F. (2020) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/22817 · Cited by 1,463 · see citing works
Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement
Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C. S. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1608207113 · Cited by 831 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Promoting growth mindsets in students has further been shown to lead to decreased achievement gaps (35) and increased performance in biology courses (37).”
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Active learning through flexible collaborative exams: Improving assessments across disciplines
Callaghan, K., Kestin, G., Klales, A., McCarty, L., & Deslauriers, L. (2026) · Active Learning in Higher Education · doi:10.1177/14697874251344293 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Midterm 1 was conducted using a standard, in-person collaborative exam, while Midterm 2 utilized asynchronous formats, allowing for a comparative analysis of these educational methods. students discuss the exam rather than search for answers (Hsu, 2021; Rieger & Heiner, 2014).”
- Authors
- Hsu, J. L.
- Affiliations
- Chapman University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hsu, Jeremy L.
- ORCID
- Hsu, Jeremy L.
- Venue
- Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
- Publisher
- American Society for Microbiology
- Published
- 2021-04-30
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 1935-7877 (ISSN-L)
- 1935-7885
- PMC
- PMC8012047
- OpenAlex
- W3154366062
- Cited by
- 10
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 2.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Chapman University Digital Commons (Chapman University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Chapman University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Social Sciences › Education › Education during COVID-19 pandemic
- Social Sciences › Education › Online and Blended Learning
- Keywords
- academic integrity, cheating, online learning, COVID-19 pandemic, biology laboratory courses, student learning
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