Sunday 11 February 2018

Can markers detect contract cheating? Results from a pilot study

an article by Phillip Dawson (Deakin University, Geelong, Australia) and Wendy Sutherland-Smith (Deakin University, Burwood, Australia) published in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education Volume 43 Issue 2 (2018)

Abstract

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.


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