Contract cheating:
An Australian research perspective
Associate Professor Wendy Sutherland-Smith (Deakin University, AUSTRALIA)
Associate Professor Phill Dawson & Dr Helen Walker (Deakin University, AUSTRALIA)
Contract cheating - definition
Elements of contract cheating:
• a formal assessment task
• is completed by a third party (not the enrolled student)
• for payment (some debate)
• is submitted for grading by the student
• as his/her own work
Some things we know from research….
•
Globally, contract cheating sites are expanding rapidly (Awdry, 2016; Lancaster & Clarke 2016; Wallace & Newton,
2014)
•
•
£200m industry - students may be incorrectly certified as achieving learning outcomes (Adams 2015)
•
Students see it as a ‘business deal’ or ‘outsourcing’ and therefore legitimate use of time (Lancaster &
35% of undergrads and 24% of postgrads thought cheating was ‘ethical’ and 22% indicated they had
purchased assessments (Hosny and Fatimer, 2014) .
Clarke, 2016)
•
Turnitin and other software text-matching don’t seem to be effective against contract cheating
(Lancaster & Clarke, 2007; 2016)
•
24% of assignments bought at ukessays.com were delivered within 24 hours of purchase and at
least 10 writers were competitively bidding to do the work (offer cheaper rates, faster delivery etc)
(Wallace & Newton, 2014)
•
Many struggling students don’t realise getting ‘help’ from these sites is a breach of AI
TEQSA, 2014; Walker & Townley, 2012; Wolverton, 2016)
(QAA, 2016;
Student cheats contract out work
"These student exclusions show that Deakin does
not tolerate cheating.“Beverley Oliver, Deakin University
University of Wollongong student stripped of degree
after being caught in MyMaster essay-cheating racket
Ed Dante = Dave Tomar. Book is
‘The Shadow Scholar”
2014: MyMaster received more than 700 requests from NSW university students and
made more than $160,000 (£ 91,819). Some students paid up to $1,000 (£573) per
assignment.
Yingying Dou, Director of
MyMaster website.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/deakin-university-students-kicked-out-for-contract-cheating-20160517-goxm1y.html
2015-16
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3595982/Thirteen-engineering-students-expelled-Deakin-University.html
Advocacy Tertiary Conference
• 25 advocacy providers/40 Australian
universities
• 5 (out of 6) States and all territories
represented
Specific aims¹:
1. To understand what student advocates
think are the causes of student contract
cheating
2. To identify potential courses of action to
address contract cheating
¹approved by Deakin University Ethics Committee
Why do students use contract cheating sites?
• Pressure/ fear of failure
• normalised practice – if others do it/ ‘normal practice’ then assumption it’s OK
• poor time management skills – competing priorities and ran out of time on deadlines
• fear of failing and do anything to avoid failure
• Unaware of seriousness under policy; Unaware of policy at all
• Lack of competency and confidence
•
In one skill area eg: statistics – no confidence in their competency
• A means to an end is not cheating– ‘passing is the goal, not learning’
•
not interested in the particular degree, unit or task and see ‘outsourcing’ as legitimate
What can we do – university level?
University /governance level
• Academic integrity modules in core units
• Increase ‘legitimate’ support and extend to online students
• Obligation to make students aware of the long-term registration risks of contract
cheating (DUSA 2016; ICAI, 2016; Nayak, 2015; Rigby et al., 2015)
• Use new technologies for identification – eye detection software, wifi radar software,
analytics – keystroke identification, random ID photos
• Some technological products being trialled for online assignments: Cadmus; others available for exams: Examity,
ProctorU; Proctorio; DigiExam.
• Pressure government for national legislation on contract cheating
• New Zealand leads the way in terms of legislative reform. Under the Education Act (1989) s.292E makes it an offence to
provide or advertise cheating services – penalty is a fine of up to $10,000. Other nations introducing/working towards
legislation – Canada, UK
• Increase contract cheating awareness campaigns across campuses (including online) (DUSA,
2016; ICAI, 2016; Nayak 2015)
http://contractcheating.weebly.com/the-event.html
http://www.contractcheating.com/
http://www.dusa.org.au/Advocacy-(1)/Contract-Cheating
What can we do – module/unit/subject level?
1.
Increase awareness of AI at the micro level of teaching
• openly talk about contract cheating to students and staff across year levels
• compulsory contract cheating/AI module in core units at ug and pg levels
2.
3.
Re-design assessment
•
supervised tasks emphasis on oral/demonstration/practical tasks
•
no ‘take-home’ tasks
•
no recycled tasks
•
more tasks where staff ‘get to know’ the students’ work (discussed the logistics of
this for high enrolment online units)
Be vigilant and report cases
Finally student advocates agree…
• There is no single solution to the issue but focus on ‘Education,
Deterrence, Detection’ (QAA, 2016, p.16)… “and punish those proven guilty so honest
students see the university ‘cares’ and ‘takes action’ around contract cheating”.
• Universities need to partner with students to deter and reduce
contract cheating
For students
For staff
Can markers detect contract cheating?
• 2016 pilot study (Dawson & Sutherland-Smith)
• Tested the claim that bespoke essays can’t be detected
• 7 trained, experienced sessional markers voluntarily participated (paid usual marking rates)
• 20 2nd year psychology assignments (n=14 real student work) AND n=6 purchased
contract cheated assignments. 10 x Ass1 + 10 Ass 2 x 7 markers = 140 marking pieces
• Different companies used (UK, USA, Australia) and different turnaround times
requested
• Student assignments were all from the preceding assessment period, so were not ‘live’
• All markers were provided with a copy of the same set of anonymised assignments
• Assignments were presented in random order
Sensitivity and specificity
Marker
Sensitivity (correct ID for cc)
Specificity (correct ID for real student work)
3/6 = 50%
14/14 = 100%
4/6 = 67%
12/14 = 86%
4/6 = 67%
14/14 = 100%
3/6 = 50%
13/14 = 93%
6/6 = 100%
14/14 = 100%
3/6 = 50%
13/14 = 93%
3/6 = 50%
14/14 = 100%
Marker 1
Marker 2
Marker 3
Marker 4
Marker 5
Marker 6
Marker 7
•
We needed both measures to determine marker accuracy at detecting:
• contract cheating (sensitivity)
• real student work (specificity)
• Sensitivity analyses showed markers detected contract cheating 62% of the time (95% CI: 0.46-0.76).
• Specificity analyses showed markers correctly identified real student work 96% of the time (95% CI: 0.890.99).
• CI ‘confidence intervals’ show the potential range of the ‘true’ sensitivity and specificity rates (using efficientscore method, corrected for continuity, per Newcombe 1998).
So what does it all mean?
• The best marker (#5) made no mistakes – 100% accuracy for real and
contract cheated work
• The worst marker (#2) correct for 67% cc and 86% real student work
(assuming a false positive is worse than a false negative)
• Marker 5’s justification for decision:
“The assignment is not set out in sections (some are not included at all), it presents
as a generic essay on obesity. No table included, info included is irrelevant to
assignment at times. Main focus is on lack of physical exercise rather than
conceptualising the problem in terms of social development, identity formation
theory etc. Relies heavily on one reference, reflection section left out.”
What we learned from markers…
• Common reasons markers gave in picking up contract cheating:
• Not answer key questions (not discipline specific) = think about WHO you employ
to mark student work….are they sufficiently expert in the area?
• Reflections done badly by cc sites
• Poor structure or not structure asked for in assignment – don’t assign ‘standard’
essays
• Missing sections (tables, figures, reflections) – ask for these, specific to context
• Lack /poor conceptualisation of theory covered in module
• Our results show that markers did pick up contract cheating most of the time
• (limitations: one module in one discipline, small number of highly trained markers; one university; small
sample size).
References
• Awdry, R. (2016). Where do the answers lie? Paper presented at the International conference on Academic
Integrity, Dubai, March 26-28 2016.
• Dawson, P. & Sutherland-Smith, W. (accepted). Can markers detect contract cheating? Assessment & Evaluation .
• Hosny, M. & Fatimer, S. (2014). Attitude of students towards cheating and plagiarism: University case study. Journal
of Applied Sciences 14:8, 748-757.
• Lancaster, T. & Clarke, R. (2008). The phenomena of contract cheating. In Robert, T. (Ed.) Student Plagiarism in an
Online World: Problems & Solutions. London: Idea Group Inc.
• Lancaster, T. & Clarke, R. (2016). Contract cheating: The outsourcing of assessed student work. In Bretag, T. (Ed.)
Handbook of Academic Integrity. Netherlands: Springer.
• Nayak, A.; Richards, D.; Homewood, J.; Taylor, M. Saddiqui, S. (2015). Academic Integrity in Australia –
Undertanding Changing culture and practice. OLT. Accessed online on 22 September
http://web.science.mq.edu.au/academic-integrity/index.html
• Newton, P. & Lang, C. (2016). Custom essay writers, freelancers and other paid third parties. In Bretag, T. (Ed).
Handbook of Academic Integrity, Netherlands: Springer.
• New Zealand Education Act (1989). Accessed 20 September:
www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1989/0080/latest/DLM3988805
• Rigby, D., Burton, M., Balcombe, K., Bateman. I. & Mulatu, A. (2015). Contract cheating and the market in essays.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation 111, 23-37.
• Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. (2016). Plagiarism in Higher Education: Custom essay writing
services an exploration of the next steps for UK Higher Education. Accessed online: http://www.qaa.ac.uk 1
September 2016
• TEQSA (2014) Report on Student Academic Integrity and Allegations of Contract Cheating by University
Students. Access online 1 September: http://www.teqsa.gov.au/explanations-hes-framework-terms
• Trushell, J., Byrne, K. & Simpson, R. (2012). Cheating behaviours, the Internet and Education undergraduate
students. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 28,136-145.
• Walker, M., & Townley, C. (2012). Contract cheating: a new challenge for academic honesty? Journal of
Academic Ethics 10:1, 27-44.
• Wallace, M. & Newton, P. (2014). Turnaround time and market capacity in contract cheating. Educational Studies,
40:2, 233-236.
• Wolverton, B. (2016). The new cheating economy. Chronicle of Higher Education. Accessed online:
www.chronicle.com/article/The-New-Cheating-Economy/237857?cid=trend