Keynote Speakers
We are pleased to announce the Australian Academic Integrity Forum 2021 Keynote speakers.
Title: It’s worse than we thought: Estimating the prevalence of commercial contract cheating using an incentivized truth-telling methodology.
Self-report surveys suggest that about 2% of Australian students engage in commercial contract cheating (buying and submitting assessments written by other people). However, people often under-report sensitive and socially-undesirable behaviours in self-report surveys, even when anonymous. An innovative research methodology was used in a study conducted in 2020 that overcomes some of the limitations of anonymous self-report surveys. Specifically, half of the >4000 students surveyed were provided with an incentive to be truthful and the students were asked for impersonal estimates of engagement in, and admission to, contract cheating, which did not involve “self-incrimination”.
This study found that 2.46 times more students admitted to commercial contract cheating, via submitting ghost-written assessments, and two times more students admitted to submitting downloaded pre-written assignments in the past year when truth-telling was incentivised, as compared with when normal self-report survey instructions were used. Using prevalence estimation formulae that are combined with the incentivised truth-telling method, we estimated that 7.9% of students buy and submit assignments from commercial contract cheating services. Additionally, 11.4% outsource assessments via obtaining pre-written work from commercial file-sharing sites. These are substantially higher percentages of commercial contract cheating than self-report surveys suggest. We conclude that commercial contract cheating is a more common problem, in the order of about four times higher than suggested by self-report surveys. It is important to consider numerous approaches to reduce incidence and increase detection of contract cheating.
Title: Contract Cheating and Assessment Design OLT Strategic Priority Project: the qualitative data from staff and student surveys
The OLT-funded Project Contract Cheating and Assessment Design remains the largest study in the world to date on contract cheating in higher education. Co-led by Tracey Bretag and Rowena Harper, its empirical findings have been internationally significant in the development of evidence-informed policy and practice. The study’s publications have so far focussed on the findings in the quantitative data gathered from two large-scale surveys (one of students and one of staff) at 8 Australian universities. This paper presents for the first time the qualitative findings from those surveys, which were provided in response to one open-text item: “Is there anything else you want to tell us about cheating in higher education?” The qualitative analysis of the staff and student data was extensively informed by Professor Tracey Bretag prior to her untimely passing in 2020. We are now proud to present the completed analysis, together in spirit with our dear colleague and friend.
Title: Courageous conversations: Taking steps back toward integrity
As most who work in the misconduct space are aware, students can view misconduct proceedings with apprehension, sometimes believing they will be facing some kind of star chamber who will decide their fate. Certainly, University misconduct processes can feel legalistic, punitive and as if the institution has limited regard for a student’s wellbeing. Prior to 2019, processes at UNSW were certainly legalistic and did not place much emphasis on the positive aspects of academic integrity.
Following development of the idea conceived by our former colleague David House, the UNSW Student Conduct and Integrity embarked on a trial of what is now the Courageous Conversations program. In essence we sought to create a misconduct process which, rather than focusing on punishment, seeks to encourage students to take conscious steps to regain their integrity, while also upholding the academic standards required of university study and generating helpful insights into student behaviours that the University can use to inform future practice.
Since inception of the program, UNSW have witnessed a range of benefits, including:
Reduced turnaround times for resolving misconduct matters;
Greater student awareness of appropriate behaviours;
Improved collaboration between professional and academic staff on academic misconduct matters;
Improvements in the quality and quantity of intelligence relating to academic misconduct behaviours.
This presentation will share insights and reflections about the development, implementation and future of Courageous Conversations.