Academic Dishonesty in a Post-Secondary Multilingual Institution

Abstract

While plagiarism is a continuing educational writing issue in many post-secondary institutions, instances of contract cheating are also rising. Plagiarism is usually conceptualized as a type of writing misconduct or violation of existing institutional academic standards, but very little attention has been paid to contract cheating—when students seek paid tutors to write their course assignments. The present paper focuses on one multilingual undergraduate student’s contract cheating experience, demonstrating her views on academic dishonesty and help seeking, and how she witnessed her multilingual peers engaging in contract cheating activities. Findings reveal that the participant’s learning might be driven by her attempts to maintain her academic status. Her participation in several paid tutorial services might be due to her bringing her own cultural values to post-secondary learning and trying to maximize her GPA as well as fulfil the learning needs of the courses she was taking. Important implications related to the present research encourage educators to revisit multilingual students’ learning needs related to academic misconduct and academic integrity in post-secondary education.