Fighting contract cheating and ghostwriting in Higher Education: Moving towards a multidimensional approach

Abstract

Contract cheating, or “ghostwriting” as it is more commonly known, has become a growing threat to academic integrity in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the world. This survey-based empirical research duly reviews a substantial body of the relevant literature of contract cheating or “ghostwriting” and it looks into this serious and often undetectable phenomenon with the view of exposing some of the implications of this practice and proposing a holistic approach that could assist educators to curb the practice. Focusing on the Omani higher education context, this paper empirically explores this issue from the perspectives of teachers in HEIs with the view of highlighting the seriousness of contract cheating to academic integrity and then making recommendations for HEIs and educators to combat the practice. Three main research questions were addressed: (1) How do teachers in higher education institutions perceive contract cheating? (2) In what way do they believe contract cheating affects academic integrity in HE? (3) What can be done to curb the practice of contract cheating? A qualitative methodology with an open-ended survey and follow-up interviews for the data collection was used. 30 participants voluntarily took part in this research. The findings showed that teachers viewed ghostwriting as a form of plagiarism. They also reported that there were negative consequences on the academic integrity of the assessed written work required of the students enrolled in different degree programmes in the Oman HEIs. At the same time, they made suggestions on ways to combat and curb the practice, such as manual verification and awareness-raising. The data informed both the pedagogical implications highlighted in this study and our recommendations.

Keywords

• academic integrity
• contract cheating
• ghostwriting
• higher education
• multidimensional approach
• plagiarism