by Thomas Lancaster -

Ghostwriters guaranteeing grades?

Lines, L., 2016. Ghostwriters guaranteeing grades? The quality of online ghostwriting services available to tertiary students in Australia. Teaching in Higher Education, 21(8), pp.889-914.

Abstract

Ghostwriting is difficult to detect, it has the potential to be high quality, and universities do not currently have adequate policies in place to police it. Determining the quality of the ghostwriting services available to tertiary students is of vital importance because underestimating the potential for students to use these services to pass their courses affects universities’ ability to detect their use and counteract their prevalence. This study examines the service being advertised to students by the 30 top-ranked ghostwriting websites. The study examines the quality of the service being offered by purchasing 2 essays from 13 of these businesses, 1 undergraduate and 1 postgraduate. These essays were graded by three academics who believed they were grading real student papers. The results of the study are alarming because they imply that had these essays been submitted to a university, the majority of them would have passed without any plagiarism detected.

http://srhe.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562517.2016.1198759#.WeYOaH944wU

by Thomas Lancaster -

Can markers detect contract cheating?

Dawson, P. and Sutherland-Smith, W., 2017. Can markers detect contract cheating? Results from a pilot study. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, pp.1-8.

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.

http://srhe.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2017.1336746#.WeYNrH944wU

by Thomas Lancaster -

11 Years Of Contract Cheating

This series of blog posts reviews developments in contract cheating since 2006.

It also includes several new small-scale research studies which help to shed more light on the contract cheating problem.

Some that I think are particularly useful including examining how contract cheating sites attract writers and looking at the social media marketing methods that essay mills use to attract customers.