Staff and student perspectives on contract cheating

Since Covid-19, a wider range of assessment formats have been employed across Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), including open-book examinations. Whilst there is opportunity for increased authenticity with open-book assessments and other assessment formats, these may be more susceptible to cheating behaviours from students. Cheating behaviour reduces the quality and validity of a student’s education, may produce graduates who are not equipped for the workplace and potentially damage the reputation of an institution.

Understanding student perceptions of cheating behaviour is important to understand the prevalence of different behaviours and how the issue of cheating can be addressed. Equally important is understanding staff perceptions as people responsible for creating assessments and the conditions under which the assessment are conducted as well as the provision of training material regarding cheating behaviour.

Our study aims to understand the perceptions of students and staff on cheating behaviours regarding summative assessment at university and to provide guidance on what universities can do to prevent cheating behaviour.

We surveyed the cohort of students in their final year of study in 2021 as they had experienced the most variation in assessment type due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the staff teaching them. Though a combination of online anonymous surveys, focus groups, and interviews quantitative and qualitative data were gathered. Staff and students were asked to rate different outsourcing behaviours with regards to their acceptability and prevalence, as well as their perceptions on what would encourage or discourage outsourcing behaviour.
We were able to identify the perceived prevalence and acceptability of 8 different cheating behaviours by students and staff, and how the inclusion of monetary transactions changed these perspectives. Through qualitative analysis of free-text responses, we identified 6 themes which gave us insights into how morality, emotions, language barriers, ability, opportunity as well as perceptions of inequality influenced student cheating behaviour. We were also able to identify when staff and student perceptions differed, such as in relation to the purpose of university, with student’s focus on grades as a measure of success leading to risk taking a part in cheating behaviour, and staff focus on the need to develop academic and transferable skills with a perception that this would reduce cheating behaviour.

Our findings also highlighted the importance of support systems during assessment periods, methods of detection (including proctored exam conditions) and methods of communication to share information regarding academic misconduct, and how these may influence cheating behaviour.