An exploration into improving examinees' acceptance of participation in an online exam

With the rapid development of the Internet and information technology, the issues related to online exams have become the concern of an increasing number of researchers. At present, the biggest challenges for the integration of web communication technology into online exams are the ability to detect cheating behaviors during the exam, and the verification of students' real identification. These problems can have an impact on the students' perceived trust of an online exam, and further influence their participation acceptance. This study proposes a research model with notarization process (technical level) and online exam policy (institutional level) in order to improve examinees' participation in online exams. There are 301 college students participating in this study. The results indicate that all the hypotheses in the model are supported, which implies that the monitoring and managing mechanisms proposed in this model can significantly raise examinees' participation acceptance for online exams. Finally, we further discuss the implications of the research findings and provide some suggestions for future developments for online exams.