How emotions impact academic dishonesty in online learning

Emotions generally boil down to appraisals and attribution.

• Appraisals: Your evaluation of whether something is good or bad for you, if it’s important (value), and your ability to do anything about the outcome (control)

• Attribution: What caused the outcome? You (internal) or something/someone else (external)?

Negative emotions, such as test anxiety, for example, often occur in high-value, low-control situations. But emotions such as boredom, one of the most damaging emotions for students, can occur when students see little value in what they’re learning.

• High-value, low-control: A student needs an A on the final exam to pass the class (high value), but they believe they’ll perform poorly because no matter how much they study, they still get bad grades (low control) because the instructors’ tests are too difficult (external attribution).

• Low-value: A student doesn’t believe what they’re learning is important and doesn’t care about the outcome.

Students cheat for many reasons beyond the obvious ones, like wanting good grades and just because they can get away with it. We’ll discuss test anxiety and other emotions that increase academic misconduct and provide practical strategies to manage them in your courses.

Test anxiety

Test anxiety is one of the most common emotions college students experience¹, especially in online courses where students may be unfamiliar with online testing² and have significant concerns about using technology during the exam and whether it will work on their device³. And students are more likely to take risks and engage in academic misconduct when they’re anxious⁴ and/or expect to perform poorly on a test⁵. 

Simply put, test anxiety and cheating go hand-in-hand. But like other emotions, test anxiety rarely occurs on its own. 

While test anxiety can motivate students to study harder in an effort to alleviate it⁶, it’s mostly accompanied by other negative emotions that also impact academic integrity as well as learning, engagement, performance, and even physical health⁷.

Confusion

Confusion is an epistemic emotion, which relates to the learning process, that occurs when students realize there’s a gap in knowledge or if information conflicts with what they believe to be true⁸. 

Confusion can be good or bad for learning, but it’s a fine line that depends on timing and whether students have the ability and resources to work through it⁹. If students can work through it or have access to helpful resources, confusion can be productive, and it can influence other beneficial epistemic emotions like curiosity. 

But if students don’t have the ability to work through it or resources to help them, or even if they’re stuck on something for too long, confusion can quickly lead to negative emotions that can increase dishonesty: frustration, anger, or boredom¹⁰.

Boredom

Boredom usually occurs when students see learning activities as irrelevant (low value), too easy or too hard (low control), repetitive and monotonous, and even when they get the impression that the instructor is disinterested¹¹.

Boredom isn’t just disinterest, though. You can be disinterested in a topic but realize it’s valuable and still put in effort to learn it. But boredom also involves disengagement and active avoidance of learning-related tasks^12. The thing that makes boredom so consequential is that, unlike emotions such as frustration and anger, it can go unnoticed. And while it obviously crushes students’ attention levels, it also negatively impacts student engagement⁹ academic performance¹³.

Anger and frustration

Frustration and anger, in general, negatively impact academic performance, but to varying degrees. Frustration is similar to test anxiety because it can motivate students in some situations⁶. Think of a time when you were so frustrated that it motivated you to double-down on your efforts to learn it or complete the assignment. But overall, it negatively impacts learning and can lead to anger, which is even worse.

Anger can direct students’ attention toward unfairness and blaming others, which impacts learning and motivation and drains memory and attention¹⁴. It also weakens their decision-making, which, like test anxiety, could increase the chances of taking risks like cheating.

Strategies to help manage students’ negative emotions that impact academic integrity:

Reduce test anxiety 

• Offer practice quizzes and a quick system check so students can test their devices and get comfortable with any technologies before exams.
  
• Share details about what the assignments and exams cover, their format, timing, grading/rubric, technologies they’ll use, and information about academic integrity so students know exactly what to expect.
  
• Provide accommodations that support assistive devices, extended time limits, and planned bathroom breaks. If you’re proctoring online exams, include instructions that allow students who may not have the right equipment, high-speed internet, or a quiet space to take a test, without being flagged.

Don’t be boring

• Offer assignments (when possible) that give students options to connect their personal and professional experiences and interests, so that it feels directly relevant to them.
  • Connect coursework to real job skills and, if possible, have students complete tasks within real tools used in that industry.

• Incorporate content in different formats (short videos, case studies, interactive simulations, etc.), break up long lectures with group work and interactive elements, and you can even proctor written assignments to secure them without concerns of AI being used.
  
• Use adaptive technologies like an intelligent tutoring system to adjust course activities to each student’s needs.

Don’t let frustration and anger snowball

• Encourage students to test their device ahead of the test to make sure everything works and show them exactly how to get support in case they encounter any issues.
  
• Provide completely objective exam rules and guidelines (sounds easier than it really is) that include short scenario examples to help students understand how the rules apply in real situations.
  
• Offer live support that responds quickly (especially during exams).
  

Turn confusion into curiosity

• Design content that introduces small, manageable challenges, but include optional resources that can provide guidance and help so that students stay curious without getting stuck.

• Encourage students to use the course forum to ask questions, share answers, and form study groups.

Helping students better manage their emotions is a win-win for everyone. It can improve learning, increase test performance, and create a better testing experience, all while helping protect academic integrity. While protecting integrity realistically requires a proctoring solution, you can’t just rely on technology alone. It works best with clear rules and guidelines, providing accommodations and quick support, and dedicating time and genuine effort to prepare students ahead of time.

References

1 Cassady, J. C., Tan, S. H., Robiullah, A., Badzovski, I., & Janiuk, J. (2025). Methods employed in studies identifying “levels” of test anxiety in university students: A systematic review. Behavioral Sciences, 15(3), 331-. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15030331

2 Gibson, Y., & Kuhn, R. (2024). E-proctoring tools: Is it a necessary inconvenience. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 24(7), 24–35. https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v24i7.7088

3 Conijn, R., Kleingeld, A., Matzat, U., & Snijders, C. (2022). The fear of big brother: The potential negative side‐effects of proctored exams. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 38(6), 1521–1534. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12651

4 Eshet, Y., Grinautsky, K., & Steinberger, P. (2024). To behave or not (un)ethically? The meditative effect of mindfulness on statistics anxiety and academic dishonesty moderated by risk aversion. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 20(1), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-024-00151-w

5 Salgado, J. F., Cuadrado, D., & Moscoso, S. (2022). Counterproductive academic behaviors and academic performance: A meta-analysis and a path analysis model. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 893775–893775. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.893775

6 Camacho-Morles, J., Slemp, G. R., Pekrun, R., Loderer, K., Hou, H., & Oades, L. G. (2021). Activity achievement emotions and academic performance: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 33(3), 1051–1095. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09585-3

7 (Pekrun, R. (2024). Control-value theory: From achievement emotion to a general theory of human emotions. Educational Psychology Review, 36(3), 83-. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09909-7

8 Vogl, E., Pekrun, R., Murayama, K., & Loderer, K. (2020). Surprised-curious-confused: Epistemic emotions and knowledge exploration. Emotion. https://doi.org/10.1037/EMO0000578

9 D’Mello, S., & Graesser, A. (2011). The half-life of cognitive-affective states during complex learning. Cognition and Emotion, 25(7), 1299–1308. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.613668

10 D’Mello, S., Lehman, B., Pekrun, R., & Graesser, A. (2014). Confusion can be beneficial for learning. Learning and Instruction, 29, 153–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2012.05.003

11 Daschmann, E. C., Goetz, T., & Stupnisky, R. H. (2011). Testing the predictors of boredom at school. Development and validation of the Precursors to Boredom Scales. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 81(3), 421440. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709910X526038

12aPekrun, R., & Stephens, E. J. (2010). Achievement emotions in higher education. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 25, 257–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8598-6_7

12b Tam, K. Y. Y., Van Tilburg, W. A. P., & Chan, C. S. (2023). Whatever will bore, will bore: The mere anticipation of boredom exacerbates its occurrence in lectures. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(1), 198–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12549

13a Pekrun, R., Hall, N., Goetz, T., & Perry, R. (2014). Boredom and academic achievement: Testing a model of reciprocal causation. https://doi.org/10.1037/A0036006

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13c Sharp, J. G., Zhu, X., Matos, M., & Sharp, J. C. (2021). The Academic Boredom Survey Instrument (ABSI): A measure of trait, state and other characteristic attributes for the exploratory study of student engagement. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(9), 1253–1280. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2021.1947998

14 Forsblom, L., Pekrun, R., Loderer, K., & Peixoto, F. (2022). Cognitive appraisals, achievement emotions, and students’ math achievement: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(2), 346–367. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000671

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