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Contract cheating -- students outsourcing assignments to ghost-writers and submitting it as their own -- is an issue facing tertiary education institutions globally. Approximately 3% to 11% of higher education students may engage on contract cheating. Understanding why nearly 90% of students do "not" engage in contract cheating is as important as understanding why other students "do," as it can aid in the development of effective interventions and policies. This study addressed limitations in previous research and built upon a measure of Reasons for Not Contract Cheating (RNCC). In this study, 403 university students participated in an online survey consisting of a revised version of the Reasons for Not Contract Cheating measure (RNCC-R) and measures of psychological individual differences, such as the dark triad personality traits, self-control, and autonomy. Two higher-order factors and six sub-factors were identified in the RNCC-R, which included some similarities to the original RNCC. The findings from this study demonstrate the importance of psychological individual differences, such as satisfaction of the need for autonomy, grit (perseverance of effort), and Machiavellianism, in predicting the reasons why students do "not" engage in contract cheating. Consistent with previous research, this study provides support for the importance of students' motivation for learning, and their perceived morals and norms, as reasons for not engaging in contract cheating. It additionally provides evidence of the importance of the academic environment, such as respect for academic staff, as a reason why students do "not" engage in contract cheating.

The highest estimates of the prevalence of commercial contract cheating in Australia come from self-report surveys, which suggest that around 2% of students engage in commercial contract cheating during their higher education studies. However, self-report surveys are limited in that participants under-report socially-undesirable behaviours. In this study, we used an incentivised truth-telling method and surveyed 4098 students from six universities and six independent higher education providers in Australia. We found that 2.46 times more students admitted to commercial contract cheating, via submitting ghost-written assessments, when truth-telling was incentivised (via a Bayesian Truth Serum methodology) rather than when normal self-report survey instructions were used. Using prevalence estimation formulae that are combined with the incentivised truth-telling method, we estimate 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-reports suggest. Furthermore, having a first language other than English was the strongest demographic predictor of Australian students' engagement in commercial contract cheating. We conclude that commercial contract cheating is a more common problem than suggested by self-report surveys. We argue that academic integrity researchers should consider methods beyond standard self-reports to estimate the prevalence of academic misconduct and that efforts to curb commercial contract cheating must be increased.

This article contributes to an emerging body of research on the role of assessment design in the prevention and detection of contract cheating. Drawing on the largest contract cheating dataset gathered to date (see cheatingandassessment.edu.au), this article examines the types of assignments and exams in which students self-reported having engaged in some form of third-party cheating, and compares this with the types of assignments and exams in which staff self-reported "detection" of third-party cheating. The article outlines three key findings. Firstly, students most commonly reported cheating in the context of exams (particularly multiple-choice exams), yet staff reported the detection of cheating in exams relatively rarely. Secondly, students reported cheating in traditional written assignments, such as reports and essays, at slightly lower rates than exams, however staff detection rates for these assignments were far higher than for exams. So third-party cheating was reported by students as occurring most commonly in exams, yet it was detected most commonly by staff in assignments. And thirdly, staff detection rates relative to student cheating rates were typically highest for text-rich assessments -- regardless of whether they were invigilated (e.g., essay under exam conditions) or not (e.g., essay). These findings challenge simplistic advice in the literature and public debate that universities should move away from text-based assignments and towards invigilated exams as a means to prevent contract cheating. While text-rich forms of assessment are not immune to contract cheating, exams are not inherently secure. While staff appear to be practised at detecting cheating in the context of student writing, greater awareness is needed to improve the detection of cheating in exams.

This article reports on one aspect of a nationally funded research project on contract cheating in Australian higher education. The project explored students' and educators' experiences of contract cheating, and the contextual factors that may influence it. This article reports the key findings from non-university higher education providers (NUHEPs). It compares survey responses from 961 students and 91 educators at four NUHEPs with previously reported findings from eight universities (14,086 students and 1,147 staff). NUHEP and university students report engaging in contract cheating in similar ways. However, while NUHEP educators spend more time teaching academic literacies and discussing contract cheating, NUHEP students are 12 times more likely than university students to report use of a professional academic writing service. Both NUHEP and university educators require systematic professional development regarding the relationship between the teaching and learning environment and students' contract cheating behaviour. NUHEPs need to be cognisant of students' vulnerability to commercial contract cheating services, and ensure they have access to timely academic and social support.

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) predicts that a combination of attitudes, perceived norms, and perceived behavioral control predict intentions, and that intentions ultimately predict behavior. Previous studies have found that the TPB can predict students' engagement in plagiarism. Furthermore, the General Theory of Crime suggests that self-control is particularly important in predicting engagement in unethical behavior such as plagiarism. In Study 1 (N = 229), we incorporated self-control in a TPB model and tested whether norms, attitudes, and self-control predicted intention to plagiarize and plagiarism behavior. The best statistical fit for the path-analytic model was achieved when a direct path from self-control to plagiarism engagement was specified. In Study 2 (N = 320), we added a measure of perceived behavioral control and split the measurement of norms into descriptive (normal behavior) and injunctive (good behavior) components. This study found that both self-control and perceived-behavioral control additively contributed to the prediction of plagiarism and the path-analytic model achieved its best fit when direct paths from perceived norms to plagiarism behavior were specified. These studies suggest that setting strong anti-plagiarism norms, such as by the use of honor codes, and seeking to enhance students' self-control may reduce engagement in plagiarism.