Cheating in University: Why Students Do It and What Schools Can Do About It

Educators have always tried to struggle with cheating. With the arrival of the technology, the issue has become even more serious. Universities blame the World Wide Web for creating a copy-paste generation. The rise of essay writing services has further exacerbated the problem. Academics now increasingly discuss “contract cheating”.

It has never been easier for students to find someone to craft their essay for them. UK essay writing service organizations offer a wide range of services, such as paper writing (different types of essays, reports, dissertation, and more), proofreading and editing. Their websites are mushrooming. So, there’s no need to make a research to claim that they are very popular among the learners.

Educators aim to protect the credibility of degree qualifications. To fight plagiarism, they offer creating smarter cheat detection software. The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) even talks about adopting a sophisticated system that can spot a difference in style and ability levels between student’s essays. They also find it necessary to ban so-called essay-mill websites. While these measures are aimed at catching the cheats, they don’t tackle the root causes of the problem.

The Plagiarism Advisory Service (PAS) says that more than 10% of UK higher education students copy the fragments of text “from outside source” into their academic papers and pass them off as their own. The Psychological Record’s survey shows that 36% of undergraduates plagiarized written material.

Experts say that the true statistics of cheating is higher. The surveys don’t provide an accurate picture. Not everyone is ready to confess to cheating, even after graduation. Besides, the plagiarism detection programmes show the copied pieces. But they can’t tell you whether the essay is tailored by writing service’s author.

It doesn’t take academic studies to discover that cheating is more common in cases when the risk of detection is minimal. A 19-year-old Taylor studying English literature says: “It happens more often than professors might think. The right precautions allow staying uncaught”.

Even when students are actually caught on plagiarizing, they remain unrepentant. They find a lot of reasons to justify their actions: a lack of time, too difficult topic, unwillingness to get a failing grade, etc. In some cases, they do it again.

Pete, a sophomore studying business, says that most of his peers plagiarize because of their lifestyle. “They want to party hard and do their assignments well at the same time. That just doesn’t work.”

However, the reasons students refer essay writing services are different. Academics offer using several methods of reducing the probability of cheating.

1.       Correctly formulated assignments

Some essay topics sound like questions that can be answered by ready-made essays available on the Net. A student can simply paraphrase the article, and the paper is ready.

Professor Sally Brown from Leeds Metropolitan University, England, says that universities should “design plagiarism out of the student experience”. It means avoiding setting simple questions like “What were the main causes of the World War II? Assignments should encourage students to reflect on their personal progress or base on their own experience. They are more difficult to plagiarize.

Though the method seems effective, it makes assignments more complicated. Students will keep using writing services. The next suggestion can help here.

2.       Providing sufficient support for struggling students

The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) has recommended creating the network of support. Universities should enable students to develop academically.

Learners can face different pressures. A common problem is that students are not being taught how to write academic papers and other assignments. Developing writing courses can help them remove this knowledge gap.

International students often refer writing services to proofread, edit or write a whole paper for them. “Most of my customers are from outside the UK. They don’t want language barriers to affect their academic performance,” – says Mary McCartney, a professional editor. “Many just don’t have proper language-support service at their university.”

3.       Giving regular guidance on what plagiarism is.

Teachers and lecturers call the government’s exam watchdog to investigate a plethora of suspicious websites. About 15,000 students are signed up to one of these websites. For £9.99, it gives access to a huge number of assignments.

Many share the view that plagiarism is partially the universities’ fault. They fail to explain the rules of the game to students. According to Northumbria Learning (it operates the Turnitin software), learners take the freely available material as “free to use” avoiding references.

Educators do little to promote the academic integrity and value of education. When the pursuit of knowledge is taken seriously, students develop a pragmatic approach to their work. Emphasizing the importance of academic assignments should be systematic.

Some blame the sources of ready writing works and essay writing services for promoting plagiarism. Others think that the source of the problem is to be found within the university system itself. The truth is that it is a learner who makes the decision. And no rules can stop students with part-time jobs or problems with understanding a certain course from seeking help on the Internet.