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Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the relationship
Assessment & Evaluation In Higher Education
Abstract
This paper reports on findings from a large Australian research project that explored the relationship between contract cheating and assessment design. Using survey responses from 14,086 students and 1147 educators at eight universities, a multivariate analysis examined the influence of a range of factors on the likelihood that different assessment types would prompt considerations of contract cheating in students. Perceptions of likelihood were highest among students who speak a language other than English at home. Perceptions of likelihood were also higher among students who reported there to be lots of opportunities to cheat, and amongst students who were dissatisfied with the teaching and learning environment. Perceptions of likelihood for certain assessment types were also higher in commerce and engineering than in any other discipline. Overall, four assessment types were perceived by students to be the least likely to be outsourced, however these are also the least likely to be set by educators. The analysis indicates that educators are more likely to use these assessment tasks when they report positively on organisational support for teaching and learning.
... Authenticity has long been recognised as an inherently valuable characteristic of assessment design (Ajjawi et al., 2023). Authentic assessment is defined as 'assessment which aims to engage students in real-world scenarios that are complex, ambiguous, and unpredictable, to simulate the real-life situations and problems that students will face in their careers (Bretag et al., 2019). Authentic assessment has emerged as an alternative to standard exams, which emphasise memorisation and recall and, instead, aims to assist students in contextualising their learning, encourage internal motivation, promote inclusion, and improve higher-order critical thinking, problem-solving, application and self-reflection skills (Sotiriadou et al., 2020). ...
... Authentic assessment has emerged as an alternative to standard exams, which emphasise memorisation and recall and, instead, aims to assist students in contextualising their learning, encourage internal motivation, promote inclusion, and improve higher-order critical thinking, problem-solving, application and self-reflection skills (Sotiriadou et al., 2020). Bretag et al., (2019) define academic integrity as compliance with ethical, moral, and professional principles, values and standards that serve as guidance for making decisions and taking action in education, research, and scholarship institutions. Ellis et al., (2020) state that there is a growing awareness of new academic misconduct practices, such as contract cheating, in higher education institutions and yet there are no definitive answers in relation to the volume of assessments procured through contract cheating providers, and the optimal management and penalisation processes for academic misconduct. ...
... It is proposed that authentic assessment should be at the forefront of an assessment movement that addresses; the requirement for improved student equity, the rise of artificial intelligence, and threats to academic integrity in higher education (Ajjawi et al., 2023). Studies have challenged the view of authentic assessment as an academic integrity panacea; for example, although authentic assessment may reduce academic integrity breaches, there is no one assessment that can prevent it, and, furthermore, the assessment type itself is not enough to address academic misconduct (Bretag et al., 2019). Moreover, the real-world, career-focused, complex problem-solving task aspects of authentic assessment may be overly complicated for academically and lingually diverse students (Ellis et al., 2020). ...
The use of AI chatbots has sparked worldwide debate regarding assessment practices in higher education. Early indications on the use of AI chatbots, signal significant disruption to the higher education system in relation to academic misconduct concern. In terms of the research approach, initially, a systematic literature review was conducted to examine the association between academic integrity and authentic assessment with 32 focused publications from 2019 to 2023 analysed. This led to the development of a robust ‘Model for Practice’ to guide the implementation of authentic assessment in a way that simultaneously improved academic integrity. This paper presents the main findings of a case study approach with two final year student groups whose teaching and assessment schedule was based on this Model. Results show that the Model addresses the issue of assessing students in a manner that engages students, improves their employability skills, and ensures adherence to academic integrity guidelines.
... Inconsistencies between role-played scenarios or differences in how the client role is played can impact the authenticity of these assessments (Oxlad et al., 2022). Role-plays are also susceptible to academic misconduct, as students may engage in contract cheating by employing an expert clinician to coach responses, or edit recordings prior to submission (Bretag et al., 2019). Written reflection tasks are also susceptible to academic misconduct, including the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools. ...
... Both students and markers who participated in focus groups suggested the live nature of the interactive oral task made this more resistant to academic misconduct than written assignments or a recorded role-play submission. Taken together, these results are consistent with previous research suggesting that students who engage in practical assessments including interactive oral tasks are less likely to engage in academic misconduct, including cheating (Bretag et al., 2019;Sotiriadou et al., 2020) Both students and markers agreed that it remained possible to cheat during the interactive task, including by using an earpiece to receive expert coaching. However, both felt that there would be signs of this, and it could be detrimental to the student's performance. ...
Finding engaging and authentic ways to assess required competencies which are resistant to academic misconduct is a challenge for tertiary psychology education. While simulation-based tasks are commonly used to assess postgraduate students’ development of professional competencies, they are less commonly used in undergraduate programs to assess pre-professional competencies. Interactive oral assessments have been suggested to achieve authenticity while inhibiting academic misconduct, and to be feasible within an online learning environment. The current study presents students’ and markers’ perceptions of an interactive oral task implemented to assess fourth-year psychology students’ counselling and reflection skills. Results suggest that students and markers perceived the interactive oral task to be an authentic assessment of knowledge and skills required for future practice, which encouraged deeper learning than written assessments or exams, and was resistant to academic misconduct. Despite feeling anxious about the new assessment format, both students and markers reported finding the engaging nature of the task enjoyable and indicated that they would like to be involved in more interactive oral assessments in the future. The extent to which these findings reflect the current literature, and the role for interactive oral tasks in the innovative, authentic assessment of pre-professional competencies which promote academic integrity are discussed.
... Many studies have sought cheating and plagiarism in online exams during submitting their exam (Bretag et al., 2019;Kocdar et al., 2018;Owunwanne et al., 2010;Zhang et al., 2018) and on the frequency of cheating and attitude toward cheating in exams at tertiary level (Colnerud & Rosander, 2009;Jamil et al., 2012) but few of them made any attempts to investigate the perception of K-12 students toward OAs. Therefore, this study tries to seek the ideas of K-12 students, both male, and female, regarding OAs. ...
... In line with studies already enquiring the cheating methods (Bretag et al., 2019;Colnerud & Rosander, 2009;Kocdar et al., 2018;Zhang et al., 2018), "looking at teaching materials and finding/copying answers", "using notes/ summaries written on pieces of paper to find the answers", and "talking to my classmates through phone, social media, or other communication devices" are of the most common ways of cheating among students. ...
... Recent research indicates that incidents of plagiarism in academic institutions are alarmingly persistent, with emerging technologies, including AI, introducing new complexities (Cotton et al., 2024;Gökçearslan et al., 2024;Mishra, 2023). Plagiarism is defined as the act of using someone else's ideas, words, or intellectual property without proper acknowledgment, often to gain some academic or professional advantage (Bretag et al., 2019). ...
This study explores the complex dynamics of academic enculturation and its influence on perceptions of plagiarism within higher education. Plagiarism presents an enduring challenge for educators and administrators, manifesting in various forms that often extend beyond simple deceit or theft to include profound misunderstandings shaped by cultural, generational, and educational factors. Prior research has identified multiple layers of misunderstanding associated with plagiarism, emphasizing the need for a nuanced approach to this issue. This paper specifically explores how the dimension of academic enculturation (a process through which individuals are inducted into the norms and values of the academic community) impacts perceptions and handling of plagiarism. By examining the responses of online faculty members, this study highlights the significant role that academic enculturation plays in shaping educators' approaches to plagiarism, revealing that misunderstandings often stem from deeper educational and cultural contexts rather than mere intent to deceive. Through a comprehensive analysis of responses from online faculty members (n = 333) across various disciplines, this manuscript offers new insights into the subtleties of plagiarism as influenced by academic enculturation, thereby contributing to more effective strategies for addressing this pervasive issue in higher education.
... It seems important to determine the cognitive load of assessment materials; if the design of assessment materials increases extraneous cognitive load, then this is going to make the assessment item harder to answer but in a way that is unrelated to the underlying learning being assessed. It has also been proposed that a heavy assessment burden will lead to high overall cognitive load and thus poor performance [26] or increase the likelihood that students will engage in academic misconduct [27], but there are limited empirical data to support these hypotheses. ...
Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are a common form of assessment in medical science education. The traditional MCQ format involves students picking a single best answer (SBA) from four or five options. There are concerns about the ability of SBA formats to reward partial knowledge and their susceptibility to guessing. An alternative to SBA is elimination testing (ET), wherein students eliminate all the incorrect answer options, with negative marking to deter guessing. Cognitive load theory (CLT) is an approach to education that prioritises strategies to minimise the amount of unnecessary ‘load’ placed upon working memory. The cognitive load imposed by assessment design has received little attention. We evaluated the cognitive load of SBA and ET MCQ formats, using an online participant pool and a survey of students at a UK Medical School. We found that partial knowledge was rewarded with the ET format. However, students strongly preferred the SBA format and reported both that it was easier and imposed a lower cognitive load. Removing negative marking reduced the cognitive load of ET style questions and improved the student experience, but the improvement was insufficient to change student preference for SBA questions.
... Personalised assessments have been widely used to target assessment design for cheating mitigation, and is amongst the best assessment types for doing so (Bretag et al., 2018). Valizadeh (2022) suggested creating unique assessments for every student, such that every student would receive a different assessment variation. ...
The adoption of online learning has introduced a multitude of opportunities and complexities. This shift poses a challenge in preserving the integrity of digital assessments, which is further accentuated by the increasing accessibility of online resources. Assessment design has emerged as a promising solution to tackle this issue, with a specific focus on creating assessments that are resistant to cheating behaviour. Personalised assessments, in particular, have shown promise in reducing academic dishonesty. This work introduces the Personalised Assessment Generative Engine (PAGE); it is designed and implemented to simplify the process of creating and administering personalised digital assessments for the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS). Following the design science research methodology, PAGE has been developed to efficiently generate personalised assessments with variations in questions, answers, and additional materials. Deploying PAGE in a university course uncovered several benefits and considerations for educators with using such a tool in their classrooms. The strengths and weaknesses of PAGE are analysed, highlighting its application areas and potential avenues for future work.
... While exploring the reasons behind students' academic dishonest behaviors, Donat et al. (2014) explored students' perceptions of injustice from instructors as a motivating factor for cheating. Bretag et al. (2019) also identified students in misconduct rated their classes as less individualized, enjoying, and task-based compared to honest students. Later, Alif et al. (2020) found that teachers' perceived skill, devotion, and admiration for instructors were negatively associated with plagiarism. ...
This paper aims to explore the relationship between Dark Triad Personality Traits and academic dishonesty, using Social Cognitive Theory as a framework. It also investigates moral disengagement and academic entitlement as potential mediators and examines perceived teacher approachability as a moderator. This study employs a quantitative approach. A sample of 336 business students across Bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. levels were surveyed using an anonymous questionnaire. The proposed model was evaluated using PLS-SEM 4. The results revealed a positive correlation between dark personality traits and academic dishonesty. Mediation analysis indicated that moral disengagement mediates the relationship between dark traits and academic dishonesty. Furthermore, moderation analysis confirmed that perceived teacher approachability plays a role in reducing academically dishonest behaviors. Overall, the findings emphasize the significance of dark triad personality traits, moral disengagement, and perceived teacher approachability in predicting academic dishonesty, contributing to its prevention. This study primarily relies on self-reported data, which may be affected by social desirability bias, and focuses on a single region, limiting the generalizability of the results.
... Furthermore, AUTCAS specifically points out the need for "authentic assessments" and "cumulative assessments". The use of authentic assessments has a positive influence on learning, autonomy, motivation and self-regulation, as the authentic assessments limit opportunities for plagiarism and contract cheating (Villarroel et al., 2018;Bretag et al., 2019). The adoption of cumulative assessments allows educators to provide rich formative feedback. ...
... As noted, this survey does not evaluate the validity of any of these approaches in improving assessment security. Regarding item 4 of Table 2, authentic assessment, the work of Bretag et al. (2019) in demonstrating that assessment authenticity is not a guarantee of academic integrity is especially noted. The increasing sophistication of genAI in interpreting photos and diagrams also calls into question the effectiveness of item 7, incorporating non-text-based artefacts, in improving assessment security. ...
In the two years since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the higher education sector in Australia has experienced both the great potential of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) to transform learning and teaching, but also the serious threat to assessment security and assurance of learning that it poses. In light of recent regulatory calls for accountability in academic integrity, this article focuses on the issue of assessment security and redesign, given the affordances of readily available large language models. A nation-wide survey of STEM academics revealed that 37% of respondents had not even tested their assessments in a genAI app; that there was little consensus – and possible misunderstandings – concerning approaches for improving assessment security; and that sector recommendations were either not well understood, or not favoured, particularly those advocating a move towards program-level assurance of learning and only securing assessments at key points of a degree program. These results highlight the need for significant support and guidance for teaching academics—in terms of both creating a clear understanding of how best to respond to assessment redesign as future consensus emerges, and institutional workload in implementing those responses —in order for challenges posed by genAI to assurance of learning to be met successfully.
... As with pre-AI discussions of academic integrity, it is important to recognise that students' misconduct is not equal across all assessment types; some forms lend themselves to academic dishonesty more than others (Bretag et al., 2019). Certain assessment types, particularly those conducted online and without supervision, are likely to create more opportunities for misconduct . ...
The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies in higher education has raised concerns about academic integrity, assessment practices and student learning. Banning or blocking GenAI tools has proven ineffective, and punitive approaches ignore the potential benefits of these technologies. As a result, assessment reform has become a pressing topic in the GenAI era. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study conducted at British University Vietnam exploring the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Assessment Scale (AIAS), a flexible framework for incorporating GenAI into educational assessments. The AIAS consists of five levels, ranging from “no AI” to “full AI,” enabling educators to design assessments that focus on areas requiring human input and critical thinking. The pilot study results indicate a significant reduction in academic misconduct cases related to GenAI and enhanced student engagement with GenAI technology. The AIAS facilitated a shift in pedagogical practices, with faculty members incorporating GenAI tools into their modules and students producing innovative multimodal submissions. The findings suggest that the AIAS can support the effective integration of GenAI in higher education, promoting academic integrity while leveraging technology’s potential to enhance learning experiences. Implications for practice or policy: Higher education institutions should adopt flexible frameworks like the AIAS to guide ethical integration of GenAI into assessment practices. Educators should design assessments that leverage GenAI capabilities, while supporting critical thinking and human input. Institutional policies related to GenAI should be developed in consultation with stakeholders and regularly updated to keep pace with technological advancements. Policymakers should prioritise research funding into the impacts of GenAI on higher education to inform evidence-based practices.
... This is not the venue to discuss the motivations and educational/societal conditions for such misconduct (Miles et al., 2022). As such misconduct threatens to undermine the integrity of the degrees and qualifications attained, all universities have processes in place to address academic misconduct through education and awareness training; through deterrence via detection and (graded) punitive action (Campbell and Waddington, 2020;Miron et al., 2021); and through modifications to assessment design (Bretag et al., 2019b;Harper et al., 2021;Chaudhry et al., 2023). ...
Deliberate academic misconduct by students often relies on the use of segments of externally authored text, generated either by commercial contract authoring services or by generative Artificial intelligence language models. While revision save identifier (rsid) numbers in Microsoft Word files are associated with edit and save actions of a document, MS Word does not adhere to the ECMA specifications for the Office Open XML. Existing literature shows that digital forensics using rsid requires access to multiple document versions or the user's machine. In cases of academic misconduct allegations usually only the submitted files are available for digital forensic examination, coupled with assertions by the alleged perpetrators about the document generation and editing process This paper represents a detailed exploratory study that provides educators and digital forensic scientists with tools to examine a single document for the veracity of various commonly asserted scenarios of document generation and editing. It is based on a series of experiments that ascertained whether and how common edit and document generation actions such as copy, paste, insertion of blocks of texts from other documents, leave telltale traces in the rsid encoding that is embedded in all MS Word documents. While digital forensics can illuminate document generation processes, the actions that led to these may have innocuous explanations. In consequence, this paper also provides academic misconduct investigators with a set of prompts to guide the interview with alleged perpetrators to glean the information required for cross-correlation with observations based on the rsid data.
... Adapted from: Bretag & Harper (2019) and TEQSA (2020). ...
This book is designed to help you plan, design, develop, and teach technology-enhanced subjects and courses. We have included information, strategies and recommendations that illustrate good practice pedagogical design; tips on planning, developing, and writing online subject content; as well as planning and facilitating online interaction. We have designed this guide to provide an overview of the entire process, from planning to implementation. If you have any questions or would like to discuss your unique course or subject needs, please contact an Educational Designer via LTSEadmin@jcu.edu.au. Material in this book has been adapted with gratitude from the open textbook Guide to Teaching with Technology: eLearning at Brock by the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation. We have adapted the book to reflect the James Cook University and Australian higher education contexts. The Guide to Teaching with Technology was cloned from a source that is no longer available. The source URL was https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/adulteducation
... Regarding the effectiveness of authentic assessment in preventing academic misconduct, studies on contract cheating have yielded mixed results (Bretag et al., 2019a(Bretag et al., , 2019bEllis et al., 2020). These mixed findings can be attributed to whether several dimensions of authentic assessment design are thoroughly considered. ...
This chapter describes how the course ‘Strategy in Practice' in the bachelor business administration at the Tilburg University in the Netherlands fosters deep learning and limits academic misconduct through promoting student engagement and authentic assessment. The chapter demonstrates the course's effectiveness in limiting students misuse of artificial intelligence by utilizing frameworks for student engagement and authentic assessment. The course design allows flexibility in time and location for students to work on their assignment, alongside structured deadlines and obligatory interactions. Therefore, students experience a balanced mix of freedom and obligation which leads to enhanced behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agentic engagement. The authentic assessment is rooted in real-world business analysis and comprehensive feedback mechanisms to ensure a genuine learning experience that encourages students to apply theory to practice.
... Subsequent to the awareness raised by the press, the topic of contract cheating became an issue of national concern, leading to the development of a research agenda in that country that has resulted in a robust body of published research. Numerous studies received funded by the Australian government, as evidenced in the authors' acknowledgements in their publications (Bretag, Harper, Burton, Ellis, et al. 2019a, 2019bEllis, van Haeringen, Harper, Bretag, 2019;Harper, Bretag, & Rundle;. Similarly in the UK, it was after contract cheating was identified by the press as occurring among tens of thousands of students there (Dean, 2016;Mostrous & Kenber, 2016), with journalists estimating the size of the industry to be worth around £100 Million at the time (Dean, 2016), that policy makers began paying closer attention. ...
The rapid and accelerated shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened parallel conversations about student well-being and academic integrity in higher education. On one hand, post-secondary students have been under increased pressure to succeed in stressful learning and societal environments. On the other hand, reports of student academic misconduct have increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need to consider the intersecting relationship between mental well-being and academic integrity to foster supportive, learner-focused, and caring higher education environments. In this session, we will open a conversation about this widely unexplored relationship. We will present the findings of a rapid review wherein we investigated how the academic integrity literature had taken up mental well-being. We will address ways that student well-being should be considering in academic integrity research and practice, such as the need to care for student well-being during academic misconduct incidents. Participants will leave this session with lessons that will be applicable during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
... By designing concise assessments, educators encourage students to engage directly with the content and demonstrate their own knowledge rather than relying on external sources (Bretag et al., 2019). These assessments can include quick quizzes, targeted questions, or brief tasks that require students to apply their understanding in a concise manner. ...
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionize education, the use of AI to complete online assessments poses a considerable challenge to assessment analytics. With a goal to support and improve the assessment process, assessment analytics involves deriving meaningful insights from assessment data related to student knowledge and instructional effectiveness. However, when students utilize machine learning to complete online assessments, the validity of assessment data as an accurate representation of student knowledge diminishes. This chapter explores the strategic use of online formative assessments to both enhance understanding of student knowledge and deter the inappropriate use of AI. While there is always a risk of academic dishonesty, online formative assessments offer a unique avenue for teachers to gather empirical evidence of student engagement, current comprehension, and critical thinking. By adopting the PICS framework for personalized, informal, constructivist, and short online formative assessments, educators can harness assessment analytics to gain valid and valuable insights into student knowledge. This approach facilitates proactive engagement with students who may be grappling with content and tempted to seek assistance from artificial intelligence, fostering meaningful conversations that aim to address learning challenges and promote academic integrity in online education.
... Background: At a renowned university, several students were found to have submitted remarkably similar answers on a take-home assignment. Upon investigation, it was revealed that the students had consulted ChatGPT for guidance [82]. ...
With the rise of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT in the educational domain, a new horizon of individualized learning has been ushered in. While ChatGPT’s proficiency in delivering immediate, contextualized feedback offers transformative pedagogical potential, it simultaneously surfaces pressing ethical dilemmas. This paper aims to navigate these complexities, focusing on challenges such as data privacy, over-reliance on the technology, intrinsic biases, and the integrity of student outputs. Despite the abundant discourse around ChatGPT’s merits and limitations, there is a marked gap in studies that holistically address its ethical dimensions. Going beyond binary discussions, our review endeavors to elucidate the multifaceted ethical issues, combining pedagogical, technological, and ethical perspectives. Our research not only spotlights these concerns but also charts actionable frameworks for stakeholders, ensuring an informed and ethically-balanced integration of ChatGPT in education.
... As far as the third research question of the study, which inquired about the common methods of cheating in OAs, is concerned, the findings indicated that the use of notes on pieces of paper, using course materials, sharing answers on social media and messaging apps were the most frequents methods of cheating in OAs which align with the findings of previous studies (Bretag et al., 2019;Colnerud & Rosander, 2009;Kocdar et al., 2018;Zhang et al., 2018). While some methods of cheating are common in online and in-person assessments, others such as using social media and messaging apps are unique to online exams. ...
Online teaching has gained more momentum since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this mode offers many benefits, one major concern is maintaining academic integrity, as online instruction can provide more opportunities for cheating. This study aimed to explore students’ attitudes toward cheating in online assessments (OAs) and any potential differences based on gender and nationality. Since our purpose was to perform a cross-cultural examination of cheating behaviors in an academic environment, we conducted the study in culturally diverse countries. The participants were 629 university students from Iran, Romania, and Lebanon. They completed a questionnaire about academic integrity in OAs. The results showed that 60% of the participants had no negative views on cheating in OAs, 58.5% admitted to cheating in OAs themselves, and 85% viewed OAs as less reliable than in-person assessments. During OAs, the most common ways of cheating included using notes on paper, relying on course materials, and sharing answers through social media and messaging apps. The main motivations for cheating included stress, time constraints, and the desire to achieve a higher grade, while factors that deterred cheating included moral and social stigma and the rights of other students. The study found no significant difference in attitudes toward cheating in OAs between male and female participants, but there were significant differences between students of different nationalities (p < 0.05).
Contract cheating is a significant concern in higher education, requiring a multifaceted teaching and learning approach to address it. Quizzing students about their writing to promote engagement, confirm authorship and detect cheating has not yet been investigated systematically. Therefore, in this study, our objective was to explore the validity and usability of the quizzing software Auth+ to verify assessment authorship and detect contract cheating. A total of 24 third-year computer science students submitted their assignments to Auth+ and were quizzed, then completed a working memory assessment and a user experience survey. Students reported that Auth+ was easy to use and would discourage cheating but increased anxiety and contributed little to their learning. Quiz scores were correlated with individual differences in working memory capacity but not with other contract cheating indicators. These findings suggest that the quizzing method may have value, but anxiety and memory issues could be barriers to the usefulness of the software. In its current state, the effectiveness of Auth+ in verifying authorship and detecting contract cheating is limited. Further software development is required to increase quiz score validity as an indicator of outsourced academic work before higher education instructors or institutions adopt it as part of an academic integrity framework. Implications for practice or policy: Authorship verification software that quizzes students on the content and style of their assignments show promise for deterring contract cheating and upholding academic integrity. Educators and institutions should not, however, rely on a single source of evidence to detect academic misconduct. Testing students on their writing using technology is similar to viva voce but it can scale up this learning and assessment process for large class sizes.
The widespread use of internet-based media and AI-powered tools for learning has provided students with convenient access to information and writing assistance. However, rather than improving their English academic writing skills, such reliance may lead to academic misconduct, including plagiarism and unethical use of AI-generated content. Such concerns motivate the researchers to gain insights from 50 second-semester students in Indonesia enrolled in two English essay writing courses regarding academic integrity and violations. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, data were collected through a questionnaire assessing students’ understanding of academic integrity, followed by an analysis of 94 essays from 47 students before and after completing the questionnaire. Findings revealed a notable gap between students’ conceptual understanding of academic integrity and their actual writing practices. Although students recognized the importance of ethical writing, instances of plagiarism from internet sources and AI-generated text incorporation persisted. These discrepancies stem from underdeveloped English writing proficiency, lack of awareness about plagiarism, and dependency on digital assistance. The study underscores the need for early and continuous instruction in academic integrity and English writing skills, along with institutional policies and support systems to mitigate academic misconduct in English academic writing.
This paper recommends that explicit value be placed on promoting dialogue among staff and students with respect to academic integrity in higher education. A detailed literature review revealed a notable lack of literature on resources and practices for professional development of staff on academic integrity or the importance of engaging academic staff in such training. Through the authors’ experience in developing and facilitating workshops, they have designed a flexible approach to academic integrity professional development for academic staff that highlights the importance of discussion and communication. Throughout this workshop development, scenarios were created to prompt discussion on a wide range of academic integrity issues (including Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)). In total, 18 workshops addressing academic integrity have been run by the authors and attended by 180 staff and 85 students at local, national, and international levels. This experience-based paper situates the need for professional development on academic integrity within the current literature and shares the evolution of the authors’ training workshops and resource development. Readers are encouraged to use the resources in their own contexts to prompt dialogue within their institutions on academic integrity.
Contract cheating remains an academic integrity concern in higher education institutions, and scholarly studies in this area have continued to increase. While highly informative systematic literature reviews on contract cheating exist, they have mainly focused on the concept of contract cheating, causal factors, and prevention strategies through detection and punitive measures. To broaden the understanding and study of contract cheating, exploring the research philosophy and theoretical approach underpinning the methodological aspects is essential. This paper aims to identify, synthesize, and critically evaluate methodologies used in the study of contract cheating and provide methodological developments for future research avenues. The findings identify a lack of theoretical foundation, methodological rigour, limited research approaches, data sources, sample diversity, and ethical considerations. Accordingly, the review brings out several methodological implications for data sources, research approaches, type of analysis, and the nature of sample diversity, with special emphasis on the ethical considerations to be aware of when conducting research with sensitive participant groups related to a sensitive research area.
برخي از پژوهشگران از هوش مصنوعي (AI) بهمنظور شناسايي جعل علمي در مطالعات استفاده ميکنند. توليدکننده خودکار مقاله (AAG) نرمافزاري است که به يک پايگاه داده بزرگ شامل مقالات، کتابها، پاياننامهها و گزارشهاي قديمي و جديد دسترسي دارد. در اين راستا؛ بر اساس وروديهاي دريافتي و احتمالاتي از دادههاي آموزشي، خروجي توليد ميشود. در پژوهش حاضر با توجه به اهميت موضوع، به بررسي چالشها، محدوديتها و راهحلهاي جلوگيري از سرقت علمي پرداخته ميشود. سوءاستفاده از اين فناوري منجر به افزايش محتواي شبهاصيل در جامعه علمي شده است. اين امر نه تنها حقوق مؤلفان اصلي را نقض ميکند، بلکه ممکن است به اصالت کار علمي نيز آسيب رساند. ضمناينکه، AI اغلب فاقد شفافيت لازم بوده و هنگام استفاده، اصول کاري و فرآيندهاي تصميمگيري اين الگوريتمها ممکن است بهطور کامل توسط محققان درک نشود و منجر به سوءبرداشت و سوءاستفاده از نتايج شود. بنابراين؛ تنظيمات و راهنماييهاي اخلاقي دقيق در مورد استفاده از AI براي حفظ يکپارچگي پژوهش و محافظت از اصالت تحقيقات علمي ضروري است. در اين راستا؛ بهمنظور تضمين صحت تمامي موارد مشکوک به تخلف که توسط ابزارهاي AI شناسايي ميشوند، بايد با دقت توسط انسانها بررسي شوند. همچنين؛ مجلات بايد نويسندگان را از تعريف خود از تخلف، استفاده از ابزارهاي AI براي شناسايي تخلف و سياستها و رويههاي خود براي پاسخگويي به موارد مشکوک به تخلف مطلع نمايند.
Background
As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent in academic settings, there is a growing concern about maintaining a culture of integrity.
Method
This article explores the role of academic institutions and programs in fostering a culture of integrity in relation to AI.
Results
By implementing specific policies, integrating tools, and utilizing software for AI detection, academic institutions can establish a culture of integrity in relation to AI. These collective efforts foster an environment where ethical AI practices are upheld and reinforce the importance of academic honesty, particularly in the nursing profession.
Conclusion
Academic institutions have the capacity to establish integrity-focused policies and integrate anti-AI agent tools in courses to mitigate unethical AI usage, while software advancements assist faculty in identifying AI presence during assessments. Emphasizing the interplay between academic and professional integrity strengthens nurses' dedication to academic honesty. [ J Nurs Educ . 2024;63(X):XXX–XXX.]
This paper traces the development of a contract cheating action plan, introduced by the Academic Integrity Council of Ontario (AICO), Canada. The action plan offers a holistic response to contract cheating, involving multiple and diverse stakeholders from postsecondary education. Created by an AICO subcommittee, three of its founding members detail the action plan and provide a perspective on its strengths, challenges, and ongoing implementation.
Contract cheating or “the outsourcing of student work to third parties” (Lancaster & Clarke, 2016, p. 639) is a type of academic misconduct that is growing and changing due to advancements in technology and the emergence of a lucrative, multi-million dollar per year industry that targets students relentlessly (Lancaster & Clarke, 2016). In an effort to protect students from engaging in contract cheating, three postsecondary institutions in Manitoba (i.e., Assiniboine Community College, Red River College, and the University of Manitoba) launched initiatives to block access to websites that offer contract cheating services from their networks. This initiative facilitated a preliminary examination of student activity on institutional networks. In any given month, a relatively large number of students (i.e., up to 3,519 unique users) were attempting to access websites identified as providing contract cheating services. We recognize that a single initiative will not eliminate academic misconduct, however, by combining various educational, protective, and preventative strategies, the likelihood that students will make ethical decisions regarding their academic work can be increased.
شكلت جائحة فيروس كورونا تحدياً حقيقياً كبيراً للمؤسسات التعليمية حول العالم؛ حيث اضطرت المدارس والجامعات إلى الاعتماد على التعلم عن بعد عوضاً عن التعليم التقليدي. وتشير العديد من الدراسات إلى أن التعلم عن بعد يمكن أن يكون فعالاً بقدر الفصول الدراسية التقليدية، حتى وإن استمر الوباء لسنوات، إلا أن القليل من الدراسات ركز على تصورات الطلاب ومدى رضاهم عن التعليم عبر الإنترنت، لا سيما خلال فترة الجائحة التي تسببت في الانتقال المفاجئ والسريع إلى هذا النوع من التعلم. هدف الدراسة: تستهدف هذه الدراسة تعرّف مدى قبول الطالب للتعلم عن بعد في الجامعات الخاصة في الكويت. المنهجية: العوامل التي تم اختبارها في الدراسة المسحية هي التكنولوجيا، الحضور الاجتماعي، نوعية التعلم. النتائج: تشير النتائج إلى أنه لتحسين بيئة التعلم عن بعد، تحتاج الجامعات إلى معالجة هذه العوامل بجدية؛ حيث يمكن للطلاب التكيف بسهولة مع بيئة التعلم الجديد، وتوفير البيئة التعليمية المناسبة للتعلم عند بعد.
The scholarly discussion of academic dishonesty in higher education institutions has experienced significant expansion for almost 30 years. This bibliometric analysis study aims to analyse past studies of academic dishonesty, focusing on higher education from 1981 to 2023. A comprehensive range of terms related to academic dishonesty was used to choose past papers from the Scopus database. Then a bibliometric analysis was conducted, which identified the year of publication, publication journal, country of origin, field of study, and authors. After selection, 594 articles in the Scopus database were identified. The paper's findings showed that research on academic dishonesty began in 1981 and kept increasing until 2023. Regarding journal publication, of the five top journals, four were related to integrity, ethics, and assessment in higher education. The field of study of social science leads to the most articles on academic dishonesty, and this study also found 10 authors who are at the top of journals on academic honesty. This study suggests that proactive steps are necessary to create a culture of academic honesty across all prospects in academia, encompassing higher education administrators, staff, lecturers, business industries, and students.
This case study explored the strategies that promote plagiarism awareness and foster originality among MAEd students. The findings highlighted the importance of research, citation, plagiarism detection, ethical awareness, revision, and skill development in promoting academic integrity among MAEd students. By emphasizing these aspects and providing resources for skill development, educational
institutions can support students in maintaining ethical conduct, ensuring the originality of their work, and upholding academic integrity standards. Effective time
management, organization, commitment to academic integrity, hard work, and avoiding overwhelm are essential themes in navigating academic pressures. The findings emphasized the importance of prioritizing tasks, staying organized, upholding ethical practices, valuing dedication, and employing strategies to avoid overwhelm. The importance of education, proper citation, and provision of resources in preventing plagiarism were prioritized. By prioritizing comprehensive training programs, teaching proper citation practices, and providing access to resources, institutions can reduce plagiarism rates and foster a culture of academic integrity among students.
Recent developments in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) have created a paradigm shift in multiple areas of society, and the use of these technologies is likely to become a defining feature of education in coming decades. GenAI offers transformative pedagogical opportunities, while simultaneously posing ethical and academic challenges. Against this backdrop, we outline a practical, simple, and sufficiently comprehensive tool to allow for the integration of GenAI tools into educational assessment: the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS). The AIAS empowers educators to select the appropriate level of GenAI usage in assessments based on the learning outcomes they seek to address. The AIAS offers greater clarity and transparency for students and educators, provides a fair and equitable policy tool for institutions to work with, and offers a nuanced approach which embraces the opportunities of GenAI while recognising that there are instances where such tools may not be pedagogically appropriate or necessary. By adopting a practical, flexible approach that can be implemented quickly, the AIAS can form a much-needed starting point to address the current uncertainty and anxiety regarding GenAI in education. As a secondary objective, we engage with the current literature and advocate for a refocused discourse on GenAI tools in education, one which foregrounds how technologies can help support and enhance teaching and learning, which contrasts with the current focus on GenAI as a facilitator of academic misconduct.
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the transdisciplinary nature of academic and research integrity research and practice. Five areas of transdisciplinarity are explored: (1) addressing complex problems from diverse and heterogeneous domains; (2) the need for a plurality of methodologies and theories to develop action-oriented solutions; (3) recognition that problems cannot be solved by any one individual or group alone; (4) the need to work together across academic disciplines and stakeholder groups; and (5) the need for cross-fertilization of knowledge and experiences. Threats, opportunities, and responsibilities of scholarship of academic and research are also explored.
How to cite this chapter:
Eaton, S. E. (2024). Academic and Research Integrity as Transdisciplinary Fields of Scholarship and Professional Practice. In S. E. Eaton (Ed.), Second Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 1633-1650). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54144-5_165
Contract cheating is a challenging problem facing higher and further education providers (HE and FE) worldwide. In the UK, contract cheating has been identified as a growing problem by the HEA and, more recently, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Department for Education. The high rate of contact cheating among students suggests that 8–9% of degrees awarded in the UK are unsafe. To address this issue, the current study with a new approach seeks to investigate student’s motivations, experiences, and rationale for using contract cheating from their point of view. Collected data has been subjected to content analysis and the findings show different phases and drivers in this process. This study will help increase awareness among UK academics and education providers about the processes involved in contract cheating and propose a set of recommendations for the future.
The purpose of the academic paper lies in analysing the viewpoints of various scientists regarding the selection and features of the application of modern approaches to the organization of the educational process, teaching and assessment of the effectiveness of the educational activities of higher education seekers, as well as in practical investigating the main aspects of assessment and educational practice in higher education.
In the process of conducting the research, an analytical and bibliographic method has been used in order to study the scientific literature on learning, teaching and assessment issues, as well as a questionnaire survey for the practical clarification of certain aspects of the evaluation and educational process in higher education.
Based on the results of the research, the existing works of scholars on the use of modern approaches to the organization of educational activities in higher education and the latest trends in the assessment of the educational process have been analysed.
While there is growing awareness of the existence and activities of Academic Custom Writing websites, which form a small part of the contract cheating industry, how they work remains poorly understood. Very little research has been done on these sites, probably because it has been assumed that it is impossible to see behind their firewalls and password protection. We have found that, with some close scrutiny, it is indeed possible to find some ‘cracks’ in these sites through which we can look to gain insights into the business processes that operate within them. We have reverse engineered the business processes that operate within some of these sites. From this we have also been able to identify three different business models that are supported by these sites. Our analysis supports important findings about how these sites operate that can be used to inform future strategies to detect and deter contract cheating.
The phenomenon of contract cheating presents, potentially, a serious threat to the quality and standards of Higher Education around the world. There have been suggestions, cited below, to tackle the problem using legal means, but we find that current laws are not fit for this purpose. In this article we present a proposal for a specific new law to target contract cheating, which could be enacted in most jurisdictions.
We test our proposed new law against a number of issues that would need to be considered before any legal approach could be successful; would changing the legal status of contract cheating make it less likely to happen? Could this be achieved in a specific way? If so, who should actually be prosecuted and what offence are they committing? Would it actually address the causes of contract cheating? We suggest some answers to these questions, but then also identify a number of unintended potential consequences. We therefore additionally consider whether a legal approach is possible or even desirable.
We conclude that a legal approach to contract cheating is possible, and, on balance, appropriate. Using UK law as an example, we offer a specific suggestion to lawmakers, around the world, for how this might be achieved, and conclude that the most successful approach would be to focus largely on a law targeting the providers of contract cheating, in particular commercial services.
Contract cheating is the purchasing of custom-made university assignments with the intention of submitting them. Websites providing contract cheating services often claim this form of cheating is undetectable, and no published research has examined this claim. This paper documents a pilot study where markers were paid to mark a mixture of real student work and contract cheating assignments, to establish their accuracy at detecting contract cheating. Seven experienced markers individually blind marked the same bundle of 20 second-year psychology assignments, which included 6 that were purchased from contract cheating websites. Sensitivity analyses showed markers detected contract cheating 62% of the time. Specificity analyses showed markers correctly identified real student work 96% of the time. Our results contrast with contract cheating sites’ claims that contract cheating is undetectable. However, they should be taken with caution as they are from one course unit in one discipline.
This research digest provides an overview of perspectives on communication skills for international students with English as an additional language (EAL). In addition, it proposes that the narrative surrounding this issue be shifted towards a focus on communication skills for all students in higher education. Initially, this analysis takes into account recurring public perceptions played out in the media where the English language competencies of EAL international students are presented as evidence of declining standards for communication skills in higher education more broadly. As higher education institutions increase their efforts to address the diverse range of communication skills of their students, the discourses that have dominated the distinctions between EAL international students and domestic students require re-framing. The times have changed and the discussion needs to move to more practical ideas which can address the complexities that often surround this issue. As such, this research digest suggests that a focus on developing and assessing the communication skills of all students will shift the institutional and external perceptions of the English language 'problem' of EAL international students. This would enable a shift towards a broader agenda for the explicit development and assessment of communication skills as core business for higher education institutions, linked to educational success and enhancing graduate employability. In this paper we have used the term 'communication skills' to refer to all aspects of communication including English Language Proficiency (ELP).
We conduct the first empirical economic investigation of the decision to cheat by university students. We investigate student demand for essays, using hypothetical discrete choice experiments in conjunction with consequential Holt–Laury gambles to derive subjects’ risk preferences. Students’ stated willingness to participate in the essay market, and their valuation of purchased essays, vary with the characteristics of student and institutional environment. Risk preferring students, those working in a non-native language, and those believing they will attain a lower grade are willing to pay more. Purchase likelihoods and essay valuations decline as the probability of detection and associated penalty increase.
The results of a large online student survey (n = 15,304), on academic integrity at six Australian universities, indicate that a majority of respondents reported a good awareness of academic integrity and knowledge of academic integrity policy at their university and were satisfied with the information and support they receive. Response varied across cohorts, with international students expressing a lower awareness of academic integrity and academic integrity policy, and lower confidence in how to avoid academic integrity breaches. Postgraduate research student respondents were the least satisfied with the information they had received about how to avoid an academic integrity breach. The results from this survey provide an opportunity to explore the student perspective and inform the higher education sector in relation to communicating with and educating students about academic integrity. The students have indicated that Australian universities need to move beyond the mere provision of information to ensure a holistic approach that engages students about academic integrity.
Contract cheating is the process whereby students auction off the opportunity for others to complete assignments for them. It is an apparently widespread yet under-researched problem. One suggested strategy to prevent contract cheating is to shorten the turnaround time between the release of assignment details and the submission date, thus making it difficult for students to make arrangements with contractors. Here, we outline some characteristics of the current market for contract cheating and demonstrate that short turnaround times are unlikely to prevent contract cheating because requested turnaround times for university-level assignments completed via contract cheating are already short (average 5 days). In addition, for every contractor awarded a job, there are an average of 10 others offering to complete it within the specified time suggesting that there is abundant excess capacity in the market.
Research and experience tell us forcefully about the importance of assessment in higher education. It shapes the experience of students and influences their behaviour more than the teaching they receive...this book is aimed at lecturers in higher education...programme leaders...and those is quality assurance and educational development remits.
Abstract Recent research and learning theory provides a wealth of thought, ideas and strategies to inform the design and implementation of learner-centered, realistic and ,effective learning ,environments. ,This chapter ,proposes guidelines,for designing ,authentic ,learning ,environments ,for higher education,that can be applied,across a range,of disciplines,and in a,variety ofmodes. Characteristics of the approach are explored in depth, and the chapters,of the ,book ,are introduced ,as examples ,of authentic ,learning environments,in diverse ,subject areas and contexts. The chapter ,provides apractical framework for teachers wishing to break away from traditional, teacher-centered approaches in higher education, and who are willing to create learning environments where students are motivated to learn in rich, relevant and ,real-world contexts. 2 Herrington & Herrington Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
Australian universities have struggled to compensate for funding cuts by taking in large numbers of full-fee-paying international students. Concern is mounting about falling standards and the growth of plagiarism. The author interviewed 14 academics from 10 universities and found that all were concerned about the inadequate English of many international students. Most reported pressure to pass such students despite poor work, and to overlook plagiarism. Where academics did report plagiarism they found the process time-consuming and often futile.
Despite major discussion and consideration of authentic assessment through the 1990s, little progress appears to have been made towards its widespread adoption in higher education. Universities often serve to limit the use of authentic approaches in learning tasks and assessment, through restrictive policies. In this paper, we briefly review the literature and summarise the characteristic elements of authentic assessment, and argue that task, assessment and university policies must be aligned for truly effective use of authentic assessment to occur in higher education. Authentic assessment in higher education: A major issue If exploring alternative approaches to assessment was 'one of the major issues of the decade' in the 1990s (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1993), it could be argued that higher education teachers in the current decade are scarcely more informed when it comes to the practical implementation and use of alternative, authentic assessment methods. Innovative and appealing ideas about a range of alternative assessment methods have been espoused over the last decade, perhaps in response to the challenges and opportunities offered by new technologies, in particular, online learning (Reeves, 2000). Because online courses are not constrained by the requirement for fixed and regular timetabled classes, they allow teachers to use more complex and sustained, product-based assessments. As is often the case with technology-based learning (Mioduser, Nachmias, Oren, & Lahav, 1999), just as these doors were opening, further developments were reducing opportunities, with the widespread adoption of course management systems. Such systems, most noticeably in their early years, enticed teachers to design their courses in weekly segments with regular assessments that were often easily marked on a computer, such as multiple choice tests. While innovative teachers have always been capable of finding ways around these limitations, the overall movement to more authentic forms of assessment has clearly been compromised, or at least delayed.
Academic integrity is an issue of critical importance to academic institutions and has been gaining increasing interest among scholars in the last few decades. This article discusses data obtained over the last three years from over 80,000 students and 12,000 faculty in the United States and Canada. While documenting that cheating on tests and exams and plagiarism are significant issues on our college and university campuses, it also offers some thoughts on possible strategies to encourage greater levels of academic integrity among students.
Authenticity is an important element of new modes of assessment. The problem is that what authentic assessment really is,
is unspecified. In this article, we first review the literature on authenticity of assessments, along with a five-dimensional
framework for designing authentic assessments with professional practice as the starting point. Then, we present the results
of a qualitative study to determine if the framework is complete, and what the relative importance of the five dimensions
is in the perceptions of students and teachers of a vocational college for nursing. We discuss implications for the framework,
along with important issues that need to be considered when designing authentic assessments.
The ways in which universities and individual academics attempt to deter and respond to student plagiarism may be based on untested assumptions about particular or primary reasons for this behaviour. Using a series of group interviews, this qualitative study gathered the views of 56 Australian university students on the possible reasons for plagiarism within their institution. The results indicate a wide and disparate range of possible contributing reasons for plagiarism, including: institutional admission criteria; student understanding of plagiarism; poor academic skills; a range of teaching and learning factors; personality factors; and external pressures. These findings are compared with other findings about reasons for student plagiarism in Australasia. The implications of these findings are considered for universities and individual academics seeking to better engage with their students to minimize or marginalize plagiarism.
Recent Australian media scandals suggest that university students are increasingly outsourcing their assessments to third parties – a behaviour known as ‘contract cheating’. This paper reports on findings from a large survey of students from eight Australian universities (n = 14,086) which sought to explore students’ experiences with and attitudes towards contract cheating, and the contextual factors that may influence this behaviour. A spectrum of seven outsourcing behaviours were investigated, and three significant variables were found to be associated with contract cheating: dissatisfaction with the teaching and learning environment, a perception that there are ‘lots of opportunities to cheat’, and speaking a Language Other than English (LOTE) at home. To minimise contract cheating, our evidence suggests that universities need to support the development of teaching and learning environments which nurture strong student–teacher relationships, reduce opportunities to cheat through curriculum and assessment design, and address the well-recognised language and learning needs of LOTE students.
If media reports are to be believed, Australian universities are facing a significant and growing problem of students outsourcing their assessment to third parties, a behaviour commonly known as ‘contract cheating’. Teaching staff are integral to preventing and managing this emerging form of cheating, yet there has been little evidence-based research to inform changes to their practice. This paper reports on the findings of a large-scale survey of teaching staff in Australian universities on the topic of contract cheating. It investigated staff experiences with and attitudes towards student cheating, and their views on the individual, contextual and organisational factors that inhibit or support efforts to minimise it. Findings indicate that contract cheating could be addressed by improving key aspects of the teaching and learning environment, including the relationships between students and staff. Such improvements are likely to minimise cheating, and also improve detection when cheating occurs.
Academic integrity is important to universities and students must abide by codes of academic conduct around assessment. Students are, however, subject to multiple pressures around assessment, some of which can push them to cheat. Modern contract cheating websites are the fronts for sophisticated, commercial operations that offer individually written assessment items for a fee; to combat their use we need a better understanding of the tools they use to persuade students to become customers. In this study we examined the persuasive features of 11 highly-visible contract cheating websites and mapped these features to a previously used persuasiveness framework. We find that contract-cheating websites use a variety of credibility, interactive and informative features designed to persuade students to use their services. In addition, the sites offer low-cost, customisable products available in very short timeframes. We suggest ways in which educators can encourage academic integrity by talking with their students about how the websites promulgate their ‘just turn to us’ message.
Ghostwriting is difficult to detect, it has the potential to be high quality, and universities do not currently have adequate policies in place to police it. Determining the quality of the ghostwriting services available to tertiary students is of vital importance because underestimating the potential for students to use these services to pass their courses affects universities’ ability to detect their use and counteract their prevalence. This study examines the service being advertised to students by the 30 top-ranked ghostwriting websites. The study examines the quality of the service being offered by purchasing 2 essays from 13 of these businesses, 1 undergraduate and 1 postgraduate. These essays were graded by three academics who believed they were grading real student papers. The results of the study are alarming because they imply that had these essays been submitted to a university, the majority of them would have passed without any plagiarism detected.
This chapter reviews key findings from a research project into student academic dishonesty conducted over a period of approximately 15 years. The project replicated and extended a large-scale seminal study which was conducted across 99 US campuses in the 1960s (Bowers WJ (1964) Student dishonesty and its control in college. Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, New York). Over the life of the project, thousands of students have provided self-report data about their own dishonest academic behaviors including those involving various forms of copying, cheating on tests and exams, and fabricating data. Twelve of the 28 behaviors measured in the project were replicated from the Bowers study, enabling comparison of results over approximately half a century. Interestingly, a consistent reduction in reported engagement in dishonest behaviors is seen over time in most of the domains measured. The chapter also provides an overview of the role that honor codes play in many of the participating institutions and the effects of these codes on cheating behavior, as witnessed over the lifetime of the project.
Almost any sort of higher education assignment can now be purchased from a third party, from traditional essays all the way through to paying someone else to sit an exam. The use of custom essay-writing companies, freelancers, exam stand-ins, and other paid third parties represents a potentially significant problem for the provision of education around the world. This chapter provides a summary of this fast-evolving issue in education. We focus on written assignments, which are cheap and easy to access. Prewritten assignments are available instantly, while bespoke custom-written assignments can be purchased with a few hours’ notice. The extent of their use is difficult to ascertain, but the limited evidence available indicates that it is widespread. The detection of their use is, at best, difficult and time-consuming. Preventative and deterrent strategies may be more effective. One author (PN) proposes preventative strategies based upon assessment design. The other (CL) proposes deterrent strategies based upon a legal approach. There is a legislative basis for the use of legal approaches to prevent misuse of paid services in higher education, and a summary of existing legislation is given, alongside examples of cases where it has been used.
This paper is largely based on a paper presented at ACSME 2011 (O'Malley & Roberts, 2011). It describes a relatively new, but rapidly expanding, cause for concern for academics and administrators, that of students plagiarizing by using online auctions, a practice also known as "contract cheating". The prevention and detection of such plagiarism in the context of science education presents particular difficulties. The paper suggests several innovative and possibly controversial methods to minimize the number of occurrences, ensuring that as few students cheat as possible, and describes various techniques to aid in the detection of those that do.
The sharing economy converges around activities facilitated through digital platforms that enable peer-to-peer access to goods and services. It constitutes an apparent paradox, framed as both part of the capitalist economy and as an alternative. This duplicity necessitates focusing on the performances of the sharing economy: how it simultaneously constructs diverse economic activities whilst also inviting the deconstruction of ongoing practices of dominance. Such performances hold open the question of what the (sharing) economy is, suspending it as a space for both opportunity and critique. Drawing on participant observation at a sharing economy 'festival' and analysis of the vocabularies of online platforms, the paper outlines three performances of sharing through community, access and collaboration. It argues through these performances that the sharing economy is contingent and complexly articulated. It has the potential to both shake up and further entrench 'business-as-usual' through the ongoing reconfiguration of a divergent range of (economic) activities. Whilst offering an antidote to the narrative of economy as engendering isolation and separation, the sharing economy simultaneously masks new forms of inequality and polarisations of ownership. Nonetheless, the paper concludes in suggesting that by pointing to wider questions concerning participation in, access to and production of resources, the sharing economy should not be dismissed. Instead, it should serve as prompt to engage with 'digital' transformations of economy in the spirit of affirmative critique that might enact the promise of doing economy differently.
Working at a satellite campus of an Australian regional university, where many students are the first in their family to attend university, fear of failure can present a strong disincentive to creative experimentation. Consequently, the authors have developed a number of tacit strategies with which to gently engender students with critical and creative skills at the expense of short-term vocational expectations. This de-emphasis of vocational specificity is particularly radical in a social context in which unemployment is high, cultural diversity is low (despite a higher than average Indigenous population) and education levels remain low. This paper seeks to explore the challenge of fostering a climate of critically engaged creative experimentation in a relatively conservative and socially disadvantaged regional context. The authors consider whether there is pedagogical value in facilitating the creation of liminal spaces between community and classroom in a social environment more attuned to vocational aspiration and economic sustenance than critical self -reflexive agency. The paper also addresses the role of student centred learning and the idea of the undergraduate student as researcher as critical to facilitating a holistic educational experience. This case study proposes a pedagogical climate that might performatively emphasise the importance of students re-imagining their own ethical, philosophical, spiritual and political futures. The authors find that the potential for failure is incontrovertibly linked to each of these aims. In a world in which previously unimagined contexts are routinely traversed the author's assert that the transformative potential of failure can unlock a transposable ability for students to critically navigate the complexity of contemporary cultural landscapes.
Analysis of student survey data from 6,096 respondents in thirty-one institutions found that academic dishonesty was associated with the existence of an honor code, student perceptions of the certainty of being reported, the severity of penalties, and cheating among peers.
The present study investigated the dishonest academic behaviours of Australian university students ( N = 954) and their relationships with demographic factors, academic policy advised to students, academic self-efficacy, and academic orientation. It was hypothesised that higher levels of dishonesty would be associated with low learning-orientation, high grade-orientation, low academic self-efficacy and nonreceipt of information about the rules of cheating and plagiarism. Descriptive analyses revealed high levels of three types of self-reported academic dishonesty: cheating, plagiarism and falsification. Regression analyses revealed demographic variables, academic orientation and academic self-efficacy to have differential predictive value for the three types of dishonesty, underlining the argument that it is misleading to measure academic dishonesty as a unidimensional construct. The results are discussed in terms of implications for strategic interventions and university policy formulation.
The accounting and education literatures contain many expressions of concern regarding the perception that plagiarism is on the rise and, particularly, the challenges for English as an Additional Language (EAL) students in mastering the academic referencing requirements underpinning Western-based university programs. This paper outlines an assignment specifically developed to assist EAL students in a second-year financial accounting course delivered in Hong Kong, to develop an understanding of plagiarism issues within the context of their study discipline. The analysis of results indicates that the assignment was effective in enhancing students' understanding of referencing and plagiarism, and confirms the need to actively repeat plagiarism education throughout a study program. The assignment was also seen to have enhanced the quality of students' written work, arguably due to the nature of the assignment as closely replicating the learning methodologies familiar to the Hong Kong student cohort.
Universities collect a considerable amount of data on students’ perceptions of the quality of teaching and institutional services, including on their satisfaction with the overall experience. While much data is collected from students, less is collected on what students are actually doing. Yet it is equally – or arguably more – important to understand students and their learning as it is to understand learners’ satisfaction with provision. The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) provides data on both learners’ engagement in effective learning practices and on whether institutions have provided the support mechanisms to facilitate such engagement. It also collects data on overall satisfaction. Monitoring student satisfaction plays an important role in assuring the quality of higher education. It provides information on whether learners see a return on their educational investment. Yet satisfaction is underpinned by more than happiness. We need to examine the determinants of satisfaction, not just satisfaction itself, to identify what institutions can do to enhance education. That is, we need to look beyond satisfaction at more fundamental educational factors to identify how to enhance student outcomes and their overall experience. This briefing focuses on students’ overall satisfaction. It identifies the activities and conditions that influence students’ satisfaction – the educational levers that institutions can use to enhance students’ university experience. The merits of satisfaction data have been debated for decades. From one perspective, it has been argued that learners are not able to assess service quality as they are in the process of shaping their knowledge and skill. From another, learners are seen as able to offer a privileged perspective on the educational process. For current purposes, it is assumed that learners’ satisfaction with the quality of provision offers an important perspective on quality, but that it is one perspective among many. The briefing is based on analysis of data from the AUSSE, conducted for the first time in 2007 with 25 Australian and New Zealand higher education institutions. A stratified probabilistic sampling strategy is deployed to produce results for first- and later-year bachelor degree students. Post-stratification weighting is used to ensure that responses represent the target population. In 2007 a total of 9,585 responses were received from students at participating universities.
The term 'authentic assessment' has recently gained widespread use in education. This paper explores various ways in which authentic assessment is being interpreted and the relationship between these different interpretations and the original focus of authenticity in learning. The paper explores briefly the ways in which implicit and explicit beliefs about the nature of learning and knowledge formation direct the ways in which authentic assessment is interpreted and used. Educational issues that arise from some implementations of authentic assessment, identified as camouflage, simulation and abstraction, are discussed. The need for authentic assessment to be contextualised through a coherent teaching, learning and assessment domain is stressed.
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