Judy Sheard, Martin Dick, Selby Markham, Peter Wagstaff

October 2001

This is a report on a study that aimed to determine attitudes towards questionable work practices of undergraduate Marketing students within the Faculty of Business and Economics. This is part of a wider project that proposes to:

• establish undergraduate and graduate students’ understanding of what constitutes cheating and plagiarism, and what practices are acceptable to them in this context
• determine the extent of cheating and plagiarism amongst undergraduate and postgraduate students
• identify motivations for cheating and plagiarism, and factors that influence cheating behaviour
• suggest measures which may be taken to discourage the practice of cheating and plagiarism

The longer-term aim of the project is to assist in determining measures that can be taken to address this problem and will facilitate the development of an informed policy on student plagiarism and cheating.

Faculty of Business and Economics students who were studying a second undergraduate Marketing subject were surveyed near the end of second semester 2001. A paper-based questionnaire was given to the students in their lecture. The questionnaire contained questions to determine:

• demographic information
• students’ rating of the acceptability of various questionable work practices described in 18 different scenarios
• students’ practice of and knowledge of others practising each questionable work practice
• reasons which could cause cheating
• reasons which could prevent cheating
• students’ perceptions of staff and the University attitudes to cheating

A brief description of the questionable work practice scenarios is as follows:

1. Two students collaborating on an assignment meant to be completed individually
2. Posting to an Internet newsgroup for assistance
3. Showing assignment work to a lecturer for guidance
4. Resubmitting an assignment from a previous subject in a new subject.
5. Submitting a friend’s assignment from a past running of the subject
6. Being given the answer to a tutorial exercise worth 5% by a class mate if the computer you used has problems
7. Hiring a person to write your assignment for you
8. Copying another student’s assignment from their computer without their knowledge and submitting it
9. Not informing the tutor, that an assignment has been given too high a mark
10. Taking a student’s assignment from a lecturer’s pigeonhole and copying it
11. Copying material for an essay from the Internet
12. Copying the majority of an assignment from a friend’s assignment, but doing a fair bit of work yourself
13. Copying all of an assignment given to you by a friend
14. Hiring someone to sit an exam for you
15. Using a hidden sheet of paper with important facts during an exam
16. Obtaining a medical certificate from a doctor to get an extension, when you are not sick
17. Copying material for an essay from a text book
18. Swapping assignments with a friend, so that each does one assignment, instead of doing both.

A copy of the Questionable Work Practices survey form can be found at: http://cerg.csse.monash.edu.au/reports/

The students surveyed were enrolled in Marketing Theory and Practice. This subject has a total enrolment of ??? however not all students attended the lecture the week the survey was administered. Eighty-nine valid questionnaires were returned. Three of questionnaires were from postgraduate students and these have not been included in the analysis of this data.

The following tables show the numbers of student classified according to categories used in the analysis of the results from the surveys. NR is used to indicate no response was given to this question.

The students were asked to consider 18 different scenarios, each describing a questionable work practice. For each scenario they were asked to rate how acceptable the practice was, whether they had done it, and whether they personally knew someone who had done it. For the ratings of acceptability a 5-point Likert scale was used, where 1 indicates acceptable and 5 indicates not acceptable. The results are shown in the Table 6 below. NR is used to indicate no response was given to the question. The "Acceptable" column shows the percentage of students who rated the scenario as acceptable (1 or 2 on the Likert scale).

The most acceptable scenarios were 2 and 3. These presented situations where students obtained low level assistance with assignment work.

Other acceptable scenarios (in decreasing order of acceptability) were:

• Scenario 4 (resubmitting an assignment from a previous subject for assessment in a new subject)
• Scenario 1 (two students collaborating on an assignment meant to be completed individually)
• Scenario 5 (submitting a friend’s assignment from a past running of the subject)
• Scenario 9 (discovering that an assignment mark was added up incorrectly to give a higher mark, and not telling the tutor)
• Scenario 12 (copying the majority of an assignment from a friend’s assignment, but doing a fair bit of work yourself)

The least acceptable were Scenario 10 (theft of an assignment from a lecturer’s pigeonhole) and Scenario 14 (exam cheating).

Other unacceptable scenarios (in increasing order of acceptability) were:

• Scenario 7 (hiring a person to write your assignment for you)
• Scenario 15 (using a hidden sheet of paper with important facts during an exam)
• Scenario 13 (copying all of an assignment given to you by a friend)
• Scenario 8 (copying another student’s assignment from their computer without their knowledge and submitting it)

The scenarios describing work practices which the highest numbers of students admitted to having done were:

• Scenario 1 (two students collaborating on an assignment meant to be completed individually)
• Scenario 5 (submitting a friend’s assignment from a past running of the subject)
• Scenario 12 (copying the majority of an assignment from a friend’s assignment, but doing a fair bit of work yourself)
• Scenario 11 (copying material for an essay from the Internet)

All of these scenarios were rated in the top seven most acceptable scenarios.

Scenarios 1, 5 and 12 were also those which the highest numbers of students admitted to having known someone personally who had done them.

The scenarios describing work practices which the least numbers of students admitted to having done were:

• Scenario 7 (hiring a person to write your assignment for you)
• Scenario 10 (taking a student’s assignment from a lecturer’s pigeonhole and copying it)
• Scenario 14 (hiring someone to sit an exam for you)
• Scenario 8 (copying another student’s assignment from their computer without their knowledge and submitting it)
• Scenario 13 (copying all of an assignment given to you by a friend)
• Scenario 15 (using a hidden sheet of paper with important facts during an exam)
• Scenario 18 (swapping assignments with a friend, so that each does one assignment, instead of doing both)

These scenarios were also all rated as highly unacceptable.

The scenarios describing work practices which the least numbers of students admitted to having known someone personally who had done it were:

• Scenario 10 (taking a student’s assignment from a lecturer’s pigeonhole and copying it)
• Scenario 14 (hiring someone to sit an exam for you)
• Scenario 8 (copying another student’s assignment from their computer without their knowledge and submitting it)

Using the major demographic descriptors of gender, fee status (full fee paying or HECS) and study mode (fulltime or part time), comparisons were made for each scenario using an Independent groups t-tests. A probability level of 0.05 was used to test the Null Hypotheses of no difference between the means of the ratings of the acceptability of scenarios. The following results were obtained:

• female students found most scenarios less acceptable than the male students and scenarios 9 and 18 significantly less acceptable
• the full fee students found scenarios 4, 9 12 and 16 significantly less acceptable than the HECS based students
• there was no clear pattern between the fulltime and part time students

The numbers and percentages of students who have practised each scenario are shown in the Table 7. Scenarios 2 and 3, which are not considered cheating practises, have not been included in these totals. One student claimed to have performed all 16 scenarios.

For this questions students were asked to indicate the likelihood that each reason would cause them to cheat (Table 8). A 5-point Likert scale was used, where 1 indicates not at all and 5 indicates highly likely. NR is used to indicate no response was given to the question.

Students ratings were again compared against gender, fee status and study mode. Statistically differences were found where:

• helping a friend was significantly more likely to cause male students to cheat than female students
• the need to get better marks was significantly more likely to cause the full fee paying students to cheat than the HECS students
• the feeling that they would fail if they did not cheat was significantly more likely to cause the HECS based students to cheat than the full fee paying students
• laziness was more likely to cause the full time students to cheat than the part time students

Table 9 presents the data on the question which asked them to rate factors or influences which cause them not to cheat. A 5-point Likert scale was used, where 1 indicates not at all and 5 indicates highly likely.

The statistical comparisons for the demographic subgroups produced the following:

• Most reasons were more likely to prevent the female students cheating than the male students, however not knowing how to cheat, high penalties if caught and religious beliefs were significantly more likely to prevent cheating.
• Religious beliefs were more likely to prevent the full fee paying students cheating than the HECS based students
• There were no significant differences based on study mode

Cross tabulations performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode found no significant differences.

Cross tabulations performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode found no significant differences.

Cross tabulations performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode showed that significantly more male students than female students felt that interviews would have no effect on reducing the likelihood of them cheating.

Cross tabulations performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode found no significant differences.

Cross tabulations performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode showed that significantly more HECS students would ignore assignment cheating than the full fee paying students.

For the above two questions Independent groups t-tests performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode found no significant differences.

Cross tabulations performed on the responses classified according to gender, fee status and study mode found no significant differences.