ERIC Number: EJ1163048
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0260-2938
EISSN: N/A
Can Markers Detect Contract Cheating? Results from a Pilot Study
Dawson, Phillip; Sutherland-Smith, Wendy
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, v43 n2 p286-293 2018
Contract cheating is the purchasing of custom-made university assignments with the intention of submitting them. Websites providing contract cheating services often claim this form of cheating is undetectable, and no published research has examined this claim. This paper documents a pilot study where markers were paid to mark a mixture of real student work and contract cheating assignments, to establish their accuracy at detecting contract cheating. Seven experienced markers individually blind marked the same bundle of 20 second-year psychology assignments, which included 6 that were purchased from contract cheating websites. Sensitivity analyses showed markers detected contract cheating 62% of the time. Specificity analyses showed markers correctly identified real student work 96% of the time. Our results contrast with contract cheating sites' claims that contract cheating is undetectable. However, they should be taken with caution as they are from one course unit in one discipline.
Descriptors: Cheating, Assignments, Pilot Projects, Undergraduate Students, Foreign Countries, Identification, Grading
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A