Unproctored and teacher-proctored exams have been widely used to prevent cheating at many universities worldwide. However, no empirical studies have directly compared their effectiveness in promoting academic integrity in actual exams. To address this significant gap, in four preregistered field studies, we examined the effectiveness of unproctored and teacher-proctored exam formats in deterring cheating behavior among university students and the role of academic integrity reminders. All four studies used a double-blind, randomized, controlled design. Before taking an exam, students were randomly assigned to take either an unproctored condition or a teacher-proctored exam, with or without receiving an academic integrity reminder. We found that the unproctored exam format is significantly more effective in reducing cheating than the teacher-proctored exam format and adding academic integrity reminders before the exams significantly reduces cheating. These findings demonstrate that incorporating unproctored exams and pre-exam academic integrity reminders into a university’s assessment practices may be a useful strategy for reducing academic dishonesty and upholding assessment validity.

无监考和教师监考的考试已在全球许多大学被广泛用于防止作弊。然而，没有实证研究直接比较它们在实际考试中促进学术诚信的有效性。为了解决这一重大差距，在四项预先注册的实地研究中，我们研究了无监考和教师监考的考试形式在阻止大学生作弊行为方面的有效性以及学术诚信提醒的作用。所有四项研究均采用双盲、随机、对照设计。在参加考试之前，学生被随机分配参加无监考条件或教师监考的考试，无论是否收到学术诚信提醒。我们发现，无监考考试形式在减少作弊方面比教师监考的考试形式更有效，并且在考试前添加学术诚信提醒可以显着减少作弊。这些发现表明，将无监考考试和考前学术诚信提醒纳入大学的评估实践可能是减少学术不诚实和维护评估有效性的有用策略。