Do warnings hold back from cheating?

Last registered on April 17, 2020
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Do warnings hold back from cheating?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0005696
Initial registration date
April 15, 2020

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 17, 2020, 1:02 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
France
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Xavier Lambin
Affiliation
ESSEC Business School
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Eric Villard
PI Affiliation
Grenoble Ecole de Management
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PI Name
Marc Humbert
PI Affiliation
Grenoble Ecole de Management
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2020-04-20
End date
2020-05-09
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Cheating, prior warnings, online exams
JEL code(s)
I21
Secondary IDs
Abstract
During the Covid-19 crisis , many exams were taken online, and therefore increasingly exposed to cheating. In a randomized control trial, we aim at understanding the dynamics of cheating and how prior warnings may mitigate it.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Humbert, Marc, Xavier Lambin and Eric Villard. 2020. "Do warnings hold back from cheating?." AEA RCT Registry. April 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.5696-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Warnings will be sent to students
Intervention Start Date
2020-04-28
Intervention End Date
2020-04-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Dummy =1 if the student cheats in final exam, 0 otherwise.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Owing to the covid-19 confinement in Spring 2019, all exams in our institution had to be done online. This situation being exceptional and sudden, instructors have very limited tools to guarantee the integrity of the exams. As a consequence, an exceptionally high degree of cheating is expected.
Experimental Design Details
Students pass a series of preparation tests before a final exam. The tests take the same form as the final exam. Both the tests and the exam are taken online, and collaboration/external help is explicitely disallowed.

We have two distinct and original technologies to identify cheating behavior. These are accurate and unknown to students. They are described in detail in the Analysis Plan. We call them Technology 1 and Technology 2, respectively.

We use technology 1 on the results of the last test to identify cheaters. Before the final exam, we will nudge some of the students: half of the students found guilty of cheating in the tests, will receive a warning.

After the exam, we use Technology 2 on the results of the exam to identity our main outcome (did the student cheat in the final exam).

We use different technologies so students cannot deploy avoidance strategies between the warning and the exam. The use of these two technologies allows to estimate how many students identified the first technology and actively avoided it.
Randomization Method
computer-based randomization
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
approximately 500
Sample size: planned number of observations
approximately 500
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
approximately 150 non-treated, 150 treated. Rest are a second control group of non cheaters.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
For an alpha=0.05 and power=0.8, 150 observations in each group, and expectation that 50% of the control group would cheat in final exam. the minimum Detectable Effect Size is 15 percentage points.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials