Effects of academic dishonesty policy reminder on university students' exam cheating - a double-blind randomized controlled experimental field study

Academic cheating is a pervasive problem in many universities globally. The present double-blind randomized controlled field experiment tested whether reminding university students about academic dishonesty sanction policies would reduce their cheating in an actual exam. Students were assigned to either a Sanction Reminder or a No Reminder condition. Results showed a significant condition effect: Fewer students in the Sanction Reminder condition cheated than in the No Reminder condition; among those who cheated, males and females did not differ in their extent of cheating in the No Reminder condition but in the Reminder condition, male students cheated to a lesser extent than females. These findings suggest that sanction reminder, a widely used academic integrity practice, may indeed have its utility to promote academic honesty in exams. Further, they suggest that to reduce cheating on exams, one does not need to use methods that are overtly explicit and elaborate. A brief, subtle, and simple reminder would suffice. Our research also illustrates the importance of conducting well-controlled field behavioral research to evaluate the effectiveness of commonly implemented educational practices to ascertain that they indeed serve their designed pedagogical purposes to promote optimal learning.