Background The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant, unforeseen changes in classroom instructions, including the evaluation of students. Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate college students’ cheating both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of (a) preponderance of cheating, (b) the factors that may have led to an increase in the amount of cheating, and (c) the underlying reasons for and affective response to cheating. Method A sample of primarily Psychology majors ( N = 214) attending a public land-grant university in the southeastern U.S. voluntarily completed a survey at the end of the Fall 2020 semester. Results The results showed that the COVID-19 pandemic increased first time cheating, cheating in online classes was higher than that of in-person classes for most types of graded materials, and students are adept and adaptive at dealing with faculty attempts to combat cheating. Students’ primary reasons for cheating were “feeling pressure,” and “pandemic,” and students who had cheated reported feeling “relieved” most often. Conclusion With the onset of the pandemic and subsequent increase in online instruction, cheating behavior has also increased. Teaching Implications As online enrollment continues to grow, understanding students’ cheating behavior.
This study investigated the impact of jailhouse informant testimony on mock juries. In addition to allowing for jury deliberations, individual judgments (as measured in most prior research) were examined. Two hundred ninety-one undergraduates, in fiveto six-member mock juries, heard a fictional murder trial summary in one of three conditions: jailhouse informant testified after receiving an incentive, jailhouse informant testified after receiving no incentive, or no jailhouse informant testimony. Participants made predeliberation judgments, deliberated on a verdict, and made postdeliberation judgments. The primary results showed that there were more guilty verdicts for juries that heard jailhouseinformant testimony than for those that did not hear such testimony. This relationship was fully mediated by perceptions of the defendant (e.g., sympathy for and credibility of). In addition, jury deliberations often produced a change in verdict; those who gave an initial guilty verdict were more likely to switch to not guilty after deliberation. Finally, cognitive network analyses showed that jailhouse informant testimony was the focus of jury deliberations for both guilty (viewed the testimony as reliable) and not guilty (viewed the testimony as unreliable) verdicts. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of how jailhouse informant testimony can influence jury deliberations in both a positive and negative way.
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