Abstract
Online education has demonstrated substantial growth over time, and has increasingly become an essential component of the higher education system. However, there has also been a growing concern with the assessment process to ensure academic honesty and integrity among students in the online classroom environment. As such, many colleges and universities offering online degree programs have extensively adopted and used exam proctoring to address this concern. In the current study, we aim to broaden our current understanding of proctored exams, particularly in online business courses, by analyzing data gathered from an online graduate-level business course where a proctored exam is required. Our empirical examination intends to address the following research questions: i) is there any significant difference in student exam performance between proctored and non-proctored exam environments?; and 2) if that is the case, what are the factors contributing to such difference and student exam performance? Based on the findings, the study further develops a set of recommendations that higher education institutions with online business degree programs can use to enhance the effectiveness of assessment methods in online courses and promote the sustainable development of online education.