MKT202 Marketing Research Plan: Contract Cheating in Australia

This assignment presents a marketing research plan developed for the Australian Marketing Institute, focusing on the issue of contract cheating among university students. The plan outlines the research problem, which identifies contract cheating as a form of academic dishonesty, particularly prevalent in Australia. The research objectives include analyzing the reasons for contract cheating, determining its increasing rate, examining contributing issues, and proposing measures for its elimination. The findings highlight factors such as dissatisfaction with the teaching environment and language barriers as drivers of contract cheating. The research employs a positivism philosophy, an explanatory research design, and a deductive approach, using quantitative surveys for data collection and SPSS for analysis. The plan also addresses confidentiality and ethical considerations. The research timeline and data analysis methods are clearly defined, offering a comprehensive approach to understanding and mitigating contract cheating in the academic environment.

RESEARCH STUDY
IMPACT OF CONTRACT CHEATING ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN AUSTRALIA

The research questions and
objectives
Research questions
• What is the reason for promoting
contract cheating?
• What is the rate by which contract
cheating is increasing?
• What are the issues that are
responsible for promoting contract
cheating?
• What are the measures that might
be undertaken for eliminating
contract cheating?
Research objectives
• To analyze and identify the reason
for promoting contract cheating
• To determine the manner in which
contract cheating is increasing
• To examine the issues that are
responsible for promoting
contract cheating
• To observe measures and action
for eliminating contract cheating

Findings from the observation
summary
• The outsourcing activity that is undertaken by the students are critically
based on three major factors- dissatisfaction with the teaching
environment, speaking language other than English and opportunities
that are associated with the cheating activity (Bretaget al. 2019)
• 36.92 % of respondents have agreed upon the fact that the increasing
dependence of the contract cheating related activities have brought
about significant changes in their outlook and behavior
• 18.46 % of respondents strongly disagreed to the fact that contract
cheating has reduced the skills and capability of the students in their
academic careers

Research methods
Philosophy, approach and design
• Positivism philosophy
• Explanatory research design
• Deductive approach
Data collection method
• Quantitative surveys which will
be conducted among the
students in Australia
• Convenience sampling
• sample size of 100 respondents
would be chosen
• Distribution of the survey
questionnaire through the
electronic media

Research timeline

Data analysis
• The data will be analyzed through the utilization of SPSS
• The responses will be recorded in Excel
• The data set will be transferred to the SPSS software for running a
correlation analysis
• Interpretation of the data will be made through the utilization of
descriptive statistics
• The P value will be calculated and analyzed whether it is below 0.05
for identifying the significance of the outcome

Confidentiality and ethics
• Confidentiality of the respondents will be maintained and their name
or responses will not be published
• Honesty, integrity and truthfulness will be maintained while analyzing
the data to avoid biased outcomes

References
• Albers, M.J., 2017. Quantitative data analysis—In the graduate curriculum. Journal of Technical Writing and
Communication, 47(2), pp.215-233.
• Bretag, T., Harper, R., Burton, M., Ellis, C., Newton, P., Rozenberg, P., Saddiqui, S. and van Haeringen, K., 2019.
Contract cheating: A survey of Australian university students. Studies in Higher Education, 44(11), pp.1837-
1856.
• Dawson, P. and Sutherland-Smith, W., 2018. Can markers detect contract cheating? Results from a pilot
study. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(2), pp.286-293.
• Rooshenas, L., Paramasivan, S., Jepson, M. and Donovan, J.L., 2019. Intensive Triangulation of Qualitative
Research and Quantitative Data to Improve Recruitment to Randomized Trials: The Quintet
Approach. Qualitative health research, 29(5), pp.672-679.
• Rowland, S., Slade, C., Wong, K.S. and Whiting, B., 2018. ‘Just turn to us’: the persuasive features of contract
cheating websites. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(4), pp.652-665.
• Rundle, K., Curtis, G.J. and Clare, J., 2019. Why students do not engage in contract cheating. Frontiers in
psychology, 10.