(Radio Iowa) – When the pandemic forced Iowa State University to switch from in-person to remote learning in the spring of 2020, I-S-U psychology professor Jason Chan feared unsupervised online exams would unleash rampant cheating. Chan figured students would be at home where they could look up anything in the textbook or online. When scores came back, Chan was surprised to see they were very close to the scores students got before moving online.

It led to an I-S-U study of the scores of nearly two-thousand students in 18 classes. Chan says students who were receiving Bs before the lockdown were still pulling in Bs when the tests were moved online and unsupervised.

While the study results indicate online exams still provide a reliable assessment of student learning, Chan warns there are potential weak spots, especially with the emergence of Chat-G-P-T and A-I writing tools.