Contract Cheating and Credentialism: An Academic Perspective

This essay explores the issue of contract cheating, a form of academic dishonesty where students outsource their coursework to third parties. It defines contract cheating and highlights its connection to credentialism, emphasizing the reliance on formal qualifications. The essay discusses the various consequences of contract cheating, including violations of academic integrity, fraud, and damage to students' careers. It delves into the motivations behind student involvement in contract cheating, such as fear of failure and the desire to outperform peers. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between contract cheating and credentialism, and discusses both academic and personal consequences. Finally, the essay proposes potential solutions, such as academic integrity modules, enhanced support for online students, awareness campaigns, and national legislation to minimize contract cheating, particularly within the Australian higher education context. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of vigilance and awareness to address this growing problem.

Contract
Cheating
Student Details:

Contract cheating (CC) is a
product of “Credentialism”
 CC is an emerging issue in a form of
academic dishonesty, in which students
contract out the coursework to
academic writers, over the internet, for
submitting the purchased assignments
as their self work.

CC: Definition
 A professional assessment task
(supposed to be done by the enrolled
student)
 Is written or done by a third party
 the third party takes payment for it
 Is submitted by the student into his or
her university for getting grades as
his or her own work

Contract Cheating as an
issue
 Here, Credentialism: a reliance over
formal qualifications and certifications
for determining if someone is allowed to
do a task or speak being an expert while
working in any field.
 Hence, the issue of Contract Cheating
arises.
 So, the root of CC lies
in Credentialism

Contract Cheating as an
issue
 Violation of academic integrity
 It is a kind of fraud : for financial gains
and academic grades, the CC happens
 An attempt to acquire through
deception
 It is a severe threat for universities, B-
schools and other educational
institutions
 It ruins students’ career and future

Contract Cheating as an
issue
 CC is misguiding professors, teachers,
students and their parents
 CC is promoting frauds in international
education sector
 Online portals like Ukessays,
Coursehero, Chegg, and many other,
breaching the academic integrity
worldwide.

Contract Cheating as an
issue
 CC may ruin the entire career of the
students
 Students may face suspension from the
university
 Students may face expulsion from the
university
 Students will definitely have lack of
knowledge, skills and expertise over the
subject or topic.

Why CC should be a topic
of discussion
 To know why modern era’s learners are
willing to cheat
 Wrong students will get award which they
do not deserve
 Wrong persons will get employment which
they do not deserve
 To anticipate likely danger to common
public
 To preserve the universities’ reputation

Why students are motivated
for academic misconduct
 Reason 1: College students are not willing to
fail
 Reason 2: Students may failed in past and now
they are finding CC as a last option
 Reason 3: To be more successful than their
peers they opt the option of CC, as they do not
believe in themselves

Why students are motivated
for academic misconduct
 The factors which motivate students to
get indulged into an academic
misconduct are:
 Family responsibilities
 Recent era’s demanding job roles
 College workload is too heavy to handle
 Some emergency situation may come
into path

A relationship amid CC and
Credentialism
 Yes, in my opinion they are directly
related with each other
 The impact of credentialism is huge over
CC as nowadays MNCs, universities, B-
schools and post graduate institutions
measure skills and expertise only with the
academic documents and mark sheets.
 Hence, an assessment based on required
eligibility and qualifications should be
used for assessing skills.

Academic and personal
consequences of CC
 The academic
consequences are:
 Validity of the degrees for
learners’ knowledge & skills
will get diminished.
 The gap amid rich and poor
people’s education will be
increased.

Academic and personal
consequences of CC
 Personal Consequences of CC are:
 Development of the skill-set of the
students will get hampered
 Credits and grades received by the
student will be fraudulent
 Poor students may plagiarize to compete
and will get caught
 Suspension and expulsion will ruin the
whole career of the students

How CC might get
minimised in Australia
 Universities can introduce academic
integrity modules in core syllabus units
 Australian Universities should enhance
legitimate support while extending it to
all online students
 They should use innovative technologies
for CC identification

How CC might get
minimised in Australia
 Universities must enhance CC
awareness through campaigns across
offline campus and online as well.
 Universities should pressurize
government for releasing national
legislation over CC
 Universities should obligate the students
for being aware of the long term
registration risks of CC.

Conclusion
 In whole, a fear of failure will cause a
lifetime failure to the students who are
using CC for getting grades.
 Teachers and universities of Australia
should spread awareness over academic
integrity and CC at a micro level of
teaching.
 We all should be vigilant and report such
cases

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