A changing focus: reconsidering research on contract cheating

This chapter explores the complex issue of contract cheating. It focuses on international evidence to unpack the issue, considers the current prevalence of the problem, and reviews the reasons reported in the research as to why some students may make use of academic custom writing services. In recent years, there have been serious concerns voiced by national agencies in higher education, and raised in the wider media, about student use of third-party services. There is, however, a priority to situate the issue of contract cheating in a wider debate about how universities and colleges can assure academic standards, enhance and embed academic integrity policy and practice, and advance evidence-informed pedagogy. To determine how the issue might be explored further, this chapter re-evaluates the predominant research areas and methodologies that have been employed to investigate the dimensions of the issue. Through reviewing established perspectives and recent evidence, recommendations for future research are proposed.