Remote proctored exams: Integrity assurance in online education?

After almost a year of COVID-19, distance education mediated by digital tools prevails as an ideal way to study given the flexibility, ubiquity, and a variety of tools that make the process more acceptable. Remote proctored exams have become an important tool to ensure integrity and academic honesty in distance education. This mixed methods study aimed at understanding to what extent remote proctored exams impacted the learning process of online graduate students and their academic integrity (ethics), besides the technological factor involved. Results revealed a significant impact of remote proctored exams as regards personal academic honesty because they minimized the possibility of performing acts of dishonesty. Students attributed this to a sense of obligation and the feeling of being watched, rather than internal motivation or a personal reflective process. Lack of privacy and anxiety emerged as aspects of concern for students.