Much has been written about student and faculty opinions on academic integrity in testing. Currently, concerns appear to focus more narrowly on online testing, generally based on anecdotal assumptions that online students are more likely to engage in academic dishonesty in testing than students in traditional on-campus courses. To address such assumptions, a statistical model to predict examination scores was recently used to predict academic dishonesty in testing. Using measures of human capital variables (for example, grade point average, class rank) to predict examination scores, the model provides for a comparison of R2 statistics. This model proposes that the more human capital variables explain variation in examination scores, the more likely the examination scores reflect students’ abilities and the less likely academic dishonesty was involved in testing. The only study to employ this model did provide some support for the assertion that lack of test monitoring in online courses may result in a greater degree of academic dishonesty. In this study, however, a further test of the predictive model resulted in contradictory findings. The disparate findings between prior research and the current study may have been due to the use of additional control variables and techniques designed to limit academic dishonesty in online testing.

Sex offender community notification statutes have been enacted to provide community members with relevant information for assessing risk of sexual victimization and to guide precautionary behavior. Prior research has found that community members receiving sex offender notification are significantly more likely to engage in precautionary measures to prevent crime victimization to themselves and household members, and has indicated that sex offender notification is significantly related to self-fear of victimization. Research has not, however, taken into consideration the relationship between protective behavior, fear of victimization, and perceived risk of victimization. This study expands the literature on notification statutes by comparing the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions of community members who have received sex offender notification with the reactions of community members who have not. Drawing upon survey analysis from Hamilton County, Ohio, we find that receiving notification that a sex offender has moved into a community significantly influences perceived risk of victimization and the behaviors individuals engage in to protect household members from crime victimization, but does not produce a significant effect on fear of victimization.

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Current research suggests a link between negative attitudes toward women and violence against women, and it also suggests that media may condition such negative attitudes. When considering the tremendous and continued growth of video game sales, and the resulting proliferation of sexual objectification and violence against women in some video games, it is lamentable that there is a dearth of research exploring the effect of such imagery on attitudes toward women. This study is the first study to use actual video game playing and control for causal order, when exploring the effect of sexual exploitation and violence against women in video games on attitudes toward women. By employing a Solomon Four-Group experimental research design, this exploratory study found that a video game depicting sexual objectification of women and violence against women resulted in statistically significant increased rape myths acceptance (rape-supportive attitudes) for male study participants but not for female participants.

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