If you Cheat, I Cheat: Cheating on a Collaborative Task with a Social Robot

Robots may soon play a role in higher education by augmenting learning environments and managing interactions between instructors and learners. Little, however, is known about how the presence of robots in the learning environment will influence academic integrity. This study therefore investigates if and how college students cheat while engaged in a collaborative sorting task with a robot. We employed a 2x2 factorial design to examine the effects of cheating exposure (exposure to cheating or no exposure) and task clarity (clear or vague rules) on college student cheating behaviors while interacting with a robot. Our study finds that prior exposure to cheating on the task significantly increases the likelihood of cheating. Yet, the tendency to cheat was not impacted by the clarity of the task rules. These results suggest that normative behavior by classmates may strongly influence the decision to cheat while engaged in an instructional experience with a robot.