Dishonesty Tendencies in Testing Scenarios Among Students with Virtual Reality and Computer-Mediated Technology

Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) systems have the potential to be an innovation in the field of e-learning. Starting with fully functional e-classes, VR technologies can be used to build entire e-campuses. The power of VR is that it allows for stronger contact with students than computer-mediated technology. Deceptive behaviour, both verbal and nonverbal, refers to intentional activities designed to deceive others. Students often engage in dishonest practices to make progress. Whether it is cheating on an exam, copying another student's essay, or inflating their GPA, the motivation for cheating is rarely simply a lack of preparation. Even though some may see academic dishonesty as an asset, the reality is that it can have major consequences. This poster demonstrates the findings from a study of students' deceitful behaviour during a test in VR and in real-life situations. For this user study, 22 volunteers were invited to participate, with each experiment involving exactly two participants and the examiner present in the room. Students were invited to take two tests: one in VR and one on a laptop. Their goal was to score as many points as possible by simulating a real-world online exam. Participants were requested to complete questionnaires during and after each experiment, which assisted in collecting additional data for this study. The results indicate that the amount of cheating that happened in VR and on a laptop was exactly the same.

• The paper compares deceptive behavior in VR and laptop-based quizzes among 22 students in 11 dyads, using counterbalanced testing, screen recordings, browser-history checks, presence measures, and post-study questionnaires.
• The study found identical aggregate cheating across media despite significantly greater VR presence, with cheating distributed between conditions rather than consistently favoring VR or laptops.
• The findings suggest that real-observer effects may outweigh immersion in shaping dishonesty, but small samples, low-stakes tasks, disclosed monitoring, and researcher familiarity limit generalization to real examinations.

Overview

This paper reports a small experimental study comparing students' deceptive behavior during tests administered in virtual reality (VR) versus on a laptop, conducted at the Quality and Usability Lab of TU Berlin (2603.08974). The work is positioned within e-learning research: the authors argue that as VR matures toward fully functional e-classes and even e-campuses, human behavior in these environments—including academic dishonesty—must be understood before VR-based assessment can guarantee fair treatment of all students. The central empirical claim is that the amount of cheating observed in VR was exactly the same as on a laptop, suggesting that immersion in a head-mounted display does not by itself increase or decrease dishonest test-taking behavior relative to conventional computer-mediated testing.

Motivation and related work

The authors ground the study in the deception-detection literature, distinguishing verbal cues (stuttering, pitch variation) from nonverbal cues (facial expressions, gaze aversion, body language), and note that deception arises from an interplay of individual and situational factors. Prior work they draw on includes Gozna, Vrij and Bull's comparison of lying in everyday versus high-stakes scenarios, and Greene and Saxe's analysis of academic cheating, which invoked the uniqueness bias and downward comparison to explain how students who believe cheating is wrong nevertheless rationalize it. The paper also cites Mol et al.'s finding that the presence of an observer triggers reputation concerns that suppress cheating—a mechanism directly relevant to their design, since a real examiner was physically present in the room in both conditions.

The stated novelty is that no prior research compares student cheating behavior across both VR and computer-mediated conditions under a real (rather than virtual) observer. Three research questions structure the study: whether students cheat more in VR than on a laptop; whether familiar pairs of participants feel more at ease to cheat; and whether unfamiliar pairs refrain from cheating entirely.

Method

Twenty-two students from Berlin universities participated (14 male, 7 female, one undisclosed; mean age 26; mean of 11 semesters of study; average self-rated VR experience of 2 on a 5-point scale). Experiments were run in dyads with the researcher present, each lasting roughly 40 minutes. Participants took two general-knowledge quizzes—one on a laptop, one in VR—with order counterbalanced via Latin squares. Cheating opportunities were realistic: browser histories were inspected and screens recorded after each session to detect unauthorized information seeking. Standard instruments were administered: the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) for affective state and the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) for presence, plus post-hoc questionnaires on "Self-perception of Lying" and "Perception of Others Lying" administered after the study's purpose was revealed.

Results

The IPQ confirmed that the VR condition produced significantly stronger presence than the laptop condition across all reported items (e.g., sense of "being there": $t(42) = -3.727$, $p < .001$; "acting in the virtual space": $t(42) = -7.456$, $p < .001$), so the manipulation was effective in creating a genuinely immersive experience. Despite this, cheating incidence was identical across conditions. Among the five familiar pairs who cheated, two students cheated only in VR, two only on the laptop, and six under both conditions—an aggregate of ten cheating participants distributed evenly between media. Five other familiar pairs did not cheat at all, and the single unfamiliar pair also abstained.

The questionnaire data contextualize these findings: 18 of 22 participants admitted having cheated previously, yet only 5 had ever been caught, and most reported feeling guilt when lying. Among the eleven non-cheaters who nonetheless felt the urge to cheat, three experienced it specifically in VR and five in both conditions; cited deterrents included not wanting to signal low intelligence and awareness of being observed—consistent with Mol et al.'s observer-effect account.

Limitations

The authors are explicit about several constraints. Ethical requirements forced disclosure of screen recording in the consent form, which may itself have suppressed cheating. Some participants knew the researcher, reducing the intimidation a professor or proctor would produce. Most importantly, the task carried no real stakes—it was not an actual exam—so the pressure that typically drives academic dishonesty was absent. The sample size (22 participants, 11 dyads) limits statistical power for between-pair comparisons, and the reported t-tests concern presence measures rather than cheating rates, which are described only descriptively. The section formally answering the research questions appears in commented-out text in the source, indicating parts of the analysis remained in draft form.

Conclusion

The study's principal contribution is evidence that equivalent levels of deceptive behavior occur in VR-based and laptop-based testing when a real observer is present, despite VR producing measurably higher presence. This suggests that immersion alone does not amplify academic dishonesty, and that observer effects may dominate over medium effects. The open questions left by the paper are specific: how a physically present researcher's influence differs in VR versus desktop conditions, whether VR proficiency moderates the effect, and how group dynamics shift when more than two participants share the environment.