emergency remote teaching: how do iranian professors deal with academic dishonesty in the virtual space?

With the global pandemic of covid-19, online education and tests have become a necessity for almost all universities and schools in the world. however, the security, reliability, and validity of online tests are a concern for educators. in this exploratory-sequential mixed-methods study, first, 15 students were interviewed about the common ways of committing academic dishonesty on online tests and in online classes. based on the thematic analysis of the data, an academic dishonesty questionnaire was developed, validated, and administered to 249 students. the results showed that academic dishonesty was more prevalent in virtual space. copying answers from exam sources and the internet and forming secret groups to share answers were the most frequent forms of cheating. however, gender and academic levels did not play a role. in addition, 20 professors were interviewed about the strategies they take to reduce academic dishonesty in virtual contexts. thematic analysis of instructor interviews on academic dishonesty preventive strategies showed nine final themes. five of the final themes including content and type of exams, administration procedures of online tests, formative assessment, focus on students, and empowering professors belonged to online tests, and four final themes including students’ attendance, content, and type of tasks, task assignment procedures, and feedback to tasks belonged to tasks and assignments over the online course. thematic analysis showed that professors use various strategies. the findings imply that measures need to be taken both by professors and technical supporters of learning management systems to guarantee the security of online tests.