Exploring contract cheating in further education: student engagement and academic integrity challenges

© 2024 The authors. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2023.2299193Contract cheating is a challenging problem facing higher and further education providers (HE and FE) worldwide. In the UK, contract cheating has been identified as a growing problem by the HEA and, more recently, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Department for Education. The high rate of contact cheating among students suggests that 8-9% of degrees awarded in the UK are unsafe. To address this issue, the current study with a new approach seeks to investigate student’s motivations, experiences, and rationale for using contract cheating from their point of view. Collected data has been subjected to content analysis and the findings show different phases and drivers in this process as follows: initial stage of connection and conversation, beginning stage of contracting, middle stage which is obtaining a guarantee for a pass and the final stage which includes payment and submission. This study will help increase awareness among UK academics and education providers about the processes involved in contract cheating and propose a set of recommendations for the future