Contract cheating, where students use a third party to complete their assignments, is frequently reported to be increasing, presenting a threat to academic standards and quality. Many incidents involve payment of the third party, giving contract cheating a commercial aspect. This study synthesised findings from prior research to try and understand how common self-report of contract cheating is in Higher Education, and test whether it is increasing. It also sought to evaluate the quality of the research evidence which addresses those questions. 71 samples were identified from 65 studies, going back to 1978. These included 54514 participants. Contract cheating was self-reported by a historic average of 3.52 % of students, with evidence that this has increased in recent years; a positive relationship was found between time and the percentage of students admitting to contract cheating, and in samples from 2014 to present the figure is 15.7%, representing approximately 31 million students around the world. This increase may be due to an overall increase in self-reported cheating, rather than contract cheating specifically. Most samples were collected using designs which makes it likely that contract cheating is under-reported, for example using convenience sampling, with a very low response rate and without guarantees of anonymity for participants. Recommendations are made for future studies on academic integrity and contract cheating specifically.

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How Common Is Commercial Contract Cheating in Higher Education and Is It Increasing? A Systematic Review

Students are using file sharing sites to breach academic integrity in light of the Covid-19 pandemic This paper analyses the use of one such site, Chegg, which offers “homework help” and other academic services to students Chegg is often presented as a file sharing site in the academic literature, but that is just one of many ways in which it can be used As this paper demonstrates, Chegg can and is used for contract cheating This is despite the apparent existence of an Honour Code on Chegg which asks students not to breach academic integrity With pandemic led safety considerations leading to increased online teaching and assessment, the paper analyses data relating to how Chegg is used by students in five STEM subjects, namely Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics and Chemistry The results show that students are using Chegg to request exam style questions They demonstrate that contract cheating requests can be put live and answered within the short duration of an examination The number of student requests posted for these five subjects increased by 19625% comparing the time period April 2019 to August 2019 with the period April 2020 to August 2020 This increase corresponds with the time when many courses moved to be delivered and assessed online The growing number of requests indicates that students are using Chegg for assessment and exam help frequently and in a way that is not considered permissible by universities The paper concludes by recommending that academic institutions put interventions in place to minimise the risk to educational standards posed by sites such as Chegg, particularly since increased online teaching and assessment may continue after the pandemic

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Contract cheating by STEM students through a file sharing website: a Covid-19 pandemic perspective

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 a...

Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the relationship

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Open artificial intelligence platforms in nursing education: Tools for academic progress or abuse?

By coming to Yale, students have implicitly asked the College to help them develop a broadly based, highly disciplined intelligence, not just to learn material, but also to be guided toward a deep and supple understanding of the subjects they study. Course readings, lectures, and discussions are all crucial elements of this learning. Less obvious, perhaps, is what students’ own writing contributes to this process. It may sometimes seem that exams, lab reports, and papers are meant primarily to measure how much has been learned. But when students complete written course work, they are not demonstrating what they have learned, but are rather doing the very work of synthesis and reflection that constitutes advanced learning. Every writer has had the experience of making discoveries while writing an essay. To have this discovery is to make knowledge, and making knowledge is what joins all students to the project of the university.

On academic dishonesty.

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 ‘c...

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Contract cheating: a survey of Australian university students

Contract cheating occurs when a student outsources their assessment to a third party, regardless of the third party’s relationship with the student, or whether money is exchanged. In higher educati...

Pearl Rozenberg

Papers

Contract cheating: a survey of Australian university students

Contract cheating and assessment design: exploring the relationship

Does authentic assessment assure academic integrity? Evidence from contract cheating data