Summary
246 reasons to cheat: An analysis of students’ reasons for seeking to outsource academic work by Alexander Amigud and Thomas Lancaster is a study that aims to answer the question: why do students seek to outsource their academic work? To answer this question, the researchers decided to analyze 5,000 messages from ten contract cheating services. For this study to be a success, the researchers had to employ a methodology, and in this case, they decided to use the case study methodology. The case study methodology was meant to investigate student discourse on Twitter. To obtain correct results, the researchers divide the study into three phases: data acquisition, coding, and analysis. In Twitter, selection filters were employed because the study required that the researchers focus on the messages showing detailed evidence of students trying to outsource their work. The study found that students outsource their work because they try to do it at first, but they give in to situational pressure that makes them think of outsourcing the work. The study also found out that certain factors influence students’ decision to outsource assignments, including perseverance, academic aptitude, self-discipline, personal issues, and competing objectives. Furthers findings from the study suggested that it is not the students only who try to outsource their work but also parents and families of the students. Parents solicit contract cheating on behalf of their children or ignore cheating behaviors of their children. The researchers, therefore, suggested that parent involvement in academic cheating is an issue that should be addressed in future studies. The study concluded that students’ outsourcing of assignments is the last option after they have tried to solve the work on their own.
References
Amigud, Alexander & Lancaster, Thomas. (2019). 246 reasons to cheat: An analysis of students’ reasons for seeking to outsource academic work. Computers & Education. 134. 10.1016/j.compedu.2019.01.017.