A controlled experiment with a medical student honor system

Abstract

In 1984 the student body at a midwestern medical school created an honor code and student honor council which supplemented the school's proctoring system. In consideration of recommending that the proctoring system be replaced by an honor system, the authors conducted a controlled experiment in which one trimester's behavioral science midterm and final examinations were unproctored and the midterm and final examinations in physiology and neuroscience were proctored. Using anonymous questionnaires, the authors discovered that significantly more students cheated and observed others cheating in behavioral science than in physiology or neuroscience examinations. Of 17 students who observed cheating, only two reported it, and they did so without providing the offenders' names.