The right amount of pressure: Implementing time pressure in online exams

ABSTRACT

To slow the spread of COVID-19, many universities have had to move to online teaching, which entails changing exams from in-person to online. Online exams can facilitate cheating when there is no direct proctoring. To provide some form of control in unproctored exams, Cluskey et al. (2011) suggested having substantial time pressure; yet there are no clear recommendations on how to implement it. We conducted an experiment comparing three implementations of time pressure (individual allocation of time, equal time for each task, and time-based on task length) in a low-stakes educational sciences exam. Students differed in their answering strategies and objective performance but not in their evaluations of the different conditions. We suggest having equal time for each task to maximize students’ performance with minimal opportunities to cheat.

KEYWORDS:

• online exams
• cheating
• time pressure
• unproctored testing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. They are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of the research participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (for2385; COSIMA; Teilprojekt M).

Notes on contributors

Matthias Stadler

Matthias Stadler is an assistant professor for educational psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. His research interests are the educational applications of computer-based assessment and the analysis of behavior in complex learning environments.

Nicola Kolb

Nicola Kolb is a student at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Her major is educational science. At the moment, she is preparing her bachelor’s thesis. In addition to her academic studies, she works for a research project.

Michael Sailer

Michael Sailer is an assistant professor for education and educational psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He is currently conducting research about gamified learning, simulation‐based learning, and the use of digital technology in education.