Exploring the Influence of Facial Verification Software on Student Academic Performance in Online Learning Environments

In spite of the advances in technology in the e-learning field during the last decades, there is still a gap of software and tools that actually improve the assessment of this kind of education by preventing students from cheating when they perform their activities online. Currently, most learning management systems do not offer enough tools or characteristics to check that students are who they assure when they carry out their exercises or online tests. Facial verification software can be considered an interesting tool to answer this need. This facial software helps to verify the identity of the students when they perform their activities, with the intention of confirming whether they are who they claim to be. However, its use could modify the academic results of the students due to psychological factors (e.g., they could feel spied, ashamed or too controlled). The aim of this article is to investigate whether the utilization of facial verification software can modify the academic performance of students in their online activities. In this work, the grades of 70 master students were analyzed and the conclusions pointed out that the academic performance obtained by the students is similar for both groups: those who have used facial authentication and those who did not use it.