The fear of Big Brother: The potential negative side-effects of proctored exams

The fear of Big Brother — a large-scale four-wave study of 1,760 students across 105 courses during pandemic-era remote exams finds that online proctoring significantly increases test anxiety, even though it has no effect on the temptation to cheat, perceived exam difficulty, or performance. The study quantifies which student and contextual factors reduce or amplify that anxiety, and argues that the decision to use online proctoring must weigh its undesirable side-effect on test anxiety.

Conijn, Kleingeld, Matzat, & Snijders (2022) provide the strongest empirical evidence to date on the "Big Brother" concern with proctored exams: surveillance raises anxiety without deterring cheating. The title captures the central finding — students' fear of being watched is a real, measurable negative side-effect of online proctoring.

Method

• Sample: Four waves of survey data across one year of pandemic-era teaching at a Dutch university; 1,760 students within 105 courses.
• Design: Multi-level analyses with crossed random effects of student and course, comparing on-campus, online non-proctored, and online proctored exams.
• Outcomes: Self-reported temptation to cheat, test anxiety, perceived exam difficulty, and performance; plus student characteristics (learning strategies, internet literacy, study-space access, reliable technology, financial stress, gender).

Key Findings

• Proctoring raises test anxiety. Students in proctored online exams reported higher test anxiety than in non-proctored online exams (β = 0.60, p < 0.001); online exams generally raised anxiety vs. on-campus (β = 0.82). 38% of variance in test anxiety resided at the student level and 14% at the course level.
• No effect on cheating. Proctoring had no effect on the temptation to cheat — directly challenging the integrity rationale for surveillance.
• No effect on exam difficulty or performance. Proctoring did not change perceived difficulty or exam grades; the test-anxiety→performance negative relationship was not amplified by proctoring.
• Who is most anxious: Female students, students with financial stress, and those lacking a dedicated study space or reliable technology reported higher test anxiety. Internet literacy and environmental-structuring learning strategies reduced anxiety.
• Key message: surveillance imposes a real anxiety cost, concentrated on already-vulnerable students (tool-novices, those with weaker home environments), with no cheating benefit.

Implications

• For Remote Proctoring policy: the integrity benefits of proctoring are unproven (no cheating reduction) while the anxiety costs are real and inequitable. Institutions should weigh surveillance against its effect on test anxiety and consider less intrusive authentic assessment alternatives.
• For Equity In AI Education: anxiety falls hardest on students with less internet literacy, less reliable technology, and weaker home study environments — proctoring exacerbates rather than reduces inequality.
• For design: interventions strengthening time management, environmental structuring, study-space access, and internet literacy can reduce proctoring anxiety; support for vulnerable students matters more than more surveillance.

Connected Concepts

• AI Anxiety And Stress — the test-anxiety construct this study directly measures
• Remote Proctoring — the proctoring practice under study
• Academic Integrity — the integrity rationale being challenged
• Privacy — the "Big Brother" surveillance concern
• Equity In AI Education — disproportionate anxiety on vulnerable students
• Student Experience — anxiety as part of the exam experience
• Well Being — the broader mental-health impact
• Assessment — the exam context
• Higher Ed — the setting
• Digital Divide — internet-literacy and technology gaps
• Ethics — the fairness of surveillance
• Trust — the surveillance-vs-trust tension

Connected Articles

• Academic Dishonesty Automated Proctoring AI 2026 — automated proctoring and dishonesty review
• Automated Online Exam Proctoring Decade Review 2026 — decade-long review of automated exam proctoring
• AI Anxiety Strategic Regulation Writing 2026 — AI anxiety as a productive signal
• Qu Wang Disclose Or Not GenAI 2026 — disclosure and relational trust

Citation

Conijn, R., Kleingeld, A., Matzat, U., & Snijders, C. (2022). The fear of Big Brother: The potential negative side-effects of proctored exams. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 38(6), 1521–1534.