2018/04/17 by Tracey Bretag, Rowena Harper, Michael Burton +5 · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Decision Sciences · #Academic integrity and plagiarism #Ethics in Business and Education
paper · doi:10.1080/03075079.2018.1462788
openalex publication_date 2018/04/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
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.