A third of students screened for a survey have admitted using file-sharing or homework help sites, ten times more than the proportion reported in the late Tracey Bretag’s pioneering 2019 work.
There’s a political axiom that when a candidate is thoroughly sick of saying something, constituents are just beginning to hear it. It might be true for universities warning students about file-sharing and homework help providers.
Christine Slade (Uni Queensland), Guy J Curtis (UWA) and Sheona Thomson (QUT) surveyed students about the use of such sites” They found nearly half had heard of, or used, such sites and were “mostly aware of academic integrity risks.” But they were, “typically unaware of their own institutions’ position or policies” – there could be reasons for that.
Their findings include:
- 68% of respondents accessed question and answer sites and tutoring services
- “At least some students are seeking materials to learn their course content rather than to use pre-answered questions to cheat”
- “Just over half of the students were very concerned that using file-sharing and homework-help websites may lead to allegations of academic misconduct”
- And they are doing it, because it is the new normal. Associate Professor Slade and colleagues considered their results against Professor Bretag’s survey and found that student users now are happier with the learning support they receive than those reported in previous research. “This suggests that file-sharing and homework-help outsourcing may not be as much of a reaction to dissatisfaction with the learning and teaching environment, as was the case (and) may reflect a growing normalisation of using these websites.”
- That, and because nearly one in five students reported teachers telling them about sites.
One possibility for this, they suggest, “is that the websites are engaging in various tactics to be accepted as legitimate or mainstream services supporting higher education students. For example, there is evidence of these websites seeking to gain institutional acceptance by ‘partnering’ with students and academic staff.”
