Survey: 29% of College Students Say They Know Their Friends or Peers Are Using Essay Mills

Plus, irony knows no bounds in U.K. test security. Plus, cheating in a L.A. high school.

Issue 51

New Study on Deterrence Effect of Laws Banning Contract Cheating

Researchers Rebecca Awdry, Phillip Dawson and Wendy Sutherland-Smith of Deakin University in Australia have gifted us with a new paper - a survey of student actions and attitudes related to outsourcing academic work and legislation banning it.

For the few outlets that covered it, the headline was that criminalizing contract cheating may not provide much deterrence. And the research team did find that believing that contract cheating was illegal did correlate with a decrease in reported outsourcing.

But, as is usually the case, the why is the question. Here, the research team strongly implies, if not outright says, that deterrence may be limited because detection and enforcement are lacking, which makes sense.

First, the study. It was an international survey of an impressive 7,126 college students and, on the toplines, it found:

575 [8%] had used some type of formal outsourcing method of the type targeted by most anti-contract-cheating legislation, and 939 [13%] had used informal outsourcing methods. Of these, only 24 respondents [4%] had been caught after submitting a formally outsourced assignment, and only 34 [4%] who informally outsourced; most students who cheated did not get caught.

As the authors note, these numbers are subject to the standard caveats and limits of self-reporting behavior.

Of note is that, at least 29% of students said they “knew that their friends or peers were using essay mills and related sites.” It’s worth highlighting that the survey used “know” instead of “think” or “suspect” or “believe.”

Also of note, when asked whether outsourcing should be illegal, the results were:

No 19.5%

Not sure 19.6%

Yes 60.9%

When “yes” respondents were asked who should be held legally accountable if contract cheating was illegal, three-quarters (75.2%) said both cheating providers and students should be.

The findings also include that:

Most students who outsourced thought that this should be illegal and either partially or fully the fault of the student.

And:

one in every five respondents who reported having engaged in formal outsourcing believed that this was illegal in their country. This finding implies that criminal or legislative action against such behaviour will have little deterrent effect on students’ outsourcing behaviours.

Both are fair and important points. One - that even those who use contract cheating sites and services think they should be illegal and place at least some responsibility on students - is worth repeating.

Still, to me, the biggest discussion point in the research is not whether cheating laws - believing contract cheating is illegal - deter student conduct. Instead, it’s that - law or no law - detection and enforcement are the real drivers of conduct change.

From the new research:

Only if students believe penalties will be applied can any outcome provide a deterrent. Only 4% of our respondents who self-reported cheating were caught by their institution. This is a worryingly low number. If students do not think that they will be caught, or if they only receive a minor penalty, cheating behaviours are not going to be affected by legislation.

Exactly. It does little good to have laws, policies and codes if those subject to them - students and cheating companies alike - find them to be literally inconsequential.

One Final Note on the New Research from Deakin University and Inside Higher Ed

I know. I said I was done highlighting the errors and incorrect information that editors at Inside Higher Ed shared in their recent online presentation (see Issue 49 and Issue 50) - but clearly I am not.

In Issue 50, I pointed out their absurd claim that punishing cheating behavior “does not work.”

Yet in their new paper, Awdry, Dawson and Sutherland-Smith of Deakin University in Australia write:

Research has shown that severe penalties in university for cheating can have a deterrent effect on cheating. Rigby et al. (2015) discovered that students were deterred from outsourcing where the most serious penalties could be applied. Another study also found a higher effect for punishment severity than the effect for the chance of being caught, which the authors noted could be because students did not believe that they were likely to be caught (Megehee and Spake 2008).

Now I am done. I think.

The CREST Test Mess

A recent minor news blurb wrapped up some relatively minor consequences for a cheating scandal in the U.K. - an incident in which professional certification exam items were stolen and posted online.

According to the news report, those items included, “exam walkthroughs, cheatsheets and reams of material that would be helpful to anyone sitting [the exam].”  

On its own, that’s low interest stuff.

What caught my eye was that the cheating materials were from an assessment put out by a group called CREST, which stands for Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers. Yes, ethical security testers had their tests hacked and cheated. Moreover, CREST is responsible, the article says, for certifying professionals the U.K.’s cyber-security industry.

No, really.

A Glimpse of Cheating at a L.A. Area High School

The L.A. Times ran a story by a student at Palisades Charter High School, just outside of L.A.  

The article starts by citing the statistic that 86% of high school students admit to cheating and says, regarding that number:

But is it really a surprise? Well, it shouldn’t be.

It’s not.

Anyway, the story is worth a scan, but mostly for the quotes from students. I’ll share a few.

Many concepts in my biology class were difficult for me to learn on my own, so I often cheated just to get the grade.

And

I’ve stopped valuing the benefits and practice that each assignment is supposed to give me because of cheating.

And, my favorite

After a certain point, I was just cheating because it was easier than actually just doing the work.

In the next “The Cheat Sheet” - More new cheating research out of Australia shows how significantly students fail to self-report cheating behavior. Plus, more cheating.

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