Relationship between Paid Academic Writing Services and Academic Integrity
A Perspective of Business Students in Pakistan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48112/bms.v3i1.1240Abstract
Abstract Views: 115
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between Paid Academic Writing Services (PAWS) and Academic Integrity of Higher Education in Pakistan. Using a quantitative research method, data were gathered from business students in Pakistan, selected randomly, using a predesigned questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and inferential analysis were applied to analyse the data gathered from the survey. The findings revealed that a significant number of students in Higher Education in Pakistan were found to be involved in academic dishonesty. The relationship between AGAT and APAWS was found to be significant and positive. On the other hand, AGAT, AIT, AIRes, AA, and AP were found to be negatively correlated with each other, indicating that the increase in Academic Integrity and the awareness of plagiarism was associated with the decrease in the use of PAWS. Based on the study analysis, it was recommended that concerned authorities should develop an effective policy and/ or mechanism to prevent the growing trend of PAWS in Pakistan.
Keywords:
Academic Integrity, Business Students in Pakistan, Higher Education, Paid Academic Writing ServicesReferences
Ahsan, K., Akbar, S., & Kam, B. (2022). Contract cheating in higher education: a systematic literature review and future research agenda. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(4), 523-539. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1931660
Ajit, S., Maikkara, A., & Ramku, W. (2024). Fear of failure: a student-facing investigation into the motivations for contract cheating and academic misconduct. Cogent Education, 11(1), 2413211. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2024.2413211
Allen, S. E., & Kizilcec, R. F. (2024). A systemic model of academic (mis) conduct to curb cheating in higher education. Higher Education, 87(5), 1529-1549. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-01077-x
Amigud, A., & Lancaster, T. (2020). I will pay someone to do my assignment: an analysis of market demand for contract cheating services on twitter. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(4), 541-553. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2019.1670780
Arshad, I., Zahid, H., Umer, S., Khan, S. Y., Sarki, I. H., & Yaseen, M. N. (2021). Academic dishonesty among higher education students in Pakistan. Elementary Education Online, 20(5), 5334-5334.
Baran, L., & Jonason, P. K. (2022). Contract cheating and the dark triad traits. In Contract cheating in higher education: Global perspectives on theory, practice, and policy (pp. 123-137). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12680-2_9
Bissessar, C. (2025). An exploration of students’ perceptions of artificial intelligence and plagiarism at a higher education institution. Equity in Education & Society, 27526461251326919. https://doi.org/10.1177/27526461251326919
Bubas, G., & Cizmesija, A. (2023, May). A Critical Analysis of Students' Cheating in Online Assessment in Higher Education: Post-COVID-19 Issues and Challenges Related to Conversational Artificial Intelligence. In MIPRO (pp. 905-910).
Chan, C. K. Y. (2025). Students’ perceptions of ‘AI-giarism’: Investigating changes in understandings of academic misconduct. Education and Information Technologies, 30(6), 8087-8108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-13151-7Comas-Forgas, et al., 2025
Cox, K., Imrie, B., & Miller, A. (2014). Student assessment in higher education: a handbook for assessing performance. Routledge.
Crossman, K. (2022). Education as a financial transaction: Contract employment and contract cheating. In Academic integrity in Canada: An enduring and essential challenge (pp. 217-230). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_11
Curtis, G. J. (2024). Contract Cheating: Introduction. In Second handbook of academic integrity (pp. 647-662). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54144-5_108
Curtis, G. J., McNeill, M., Slade, C., Tremayne, K., Harper, R., Rundle, K., & Greenaway, R. (2022). Moving beyond self-reports to estimate the prevalence of commercial contract cheating: An Australian study. Studies in Higher Education, 47(9), 1844-1856. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.1972093
Daly, T. M., & Ryan, J. C. (2024). University ‘Pay-for-grades’: the bait and switch search engine optimization strategies of contract cheating websites in the United States. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 20(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-023-00148-x
Diaz, J. C. T., Duart, J. M., Carrión, P. V. T., & Gutierrez, I. M. (2021). Plagiarism and use of technology by high school students. Campus Virtuales, 10(2), 175-184.
Draper, M., & Boland, M. (2024). Contract cheating: Legal, regulatory, and policy responses. In Second Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 729-746). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54144-5_114
Draper, M., Lancaster, T., Dann, S., Crockett, R., & Glendinning, I. (2021). Essay mills and other contract cheating services: to buy or not to buy and the consequences of students changing their minds. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 17(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-021-00081-x
Eaton, S. E. (2022). Contract cheating in Canada: A comprehensive overview. Academic Integrity in Canada: An Enduring and Essential Challenge, 165-187. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_8
Eaton, S. E., & Carmichael, J. J. (2023). Fake degrees and credential fraud, contract cheating, and paper mills: Overview and historical perspectives. Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21796-8_1
Edelsbrunner, P. A., Simonsmeier, B. A., & Schneider, M. (2025). The Cronbach’s alpha of domain-specific knowledge tests before and after learning: A meta-analysis of published studies. Educational Psychology Review, 37(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09982-y
Felski, E. (2025). Have students’ perceptions of cheating changed post-pandemic?. Studies in Higher Education, 50(12), 2881-2899. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2437057
Ferguson, C. D., Toye, M. A., & Eaton, S. E. (2023). Contract cheating and student stress: Insights from a Canadian community college. Journal of Academic Ethics, 21(4), 685-717. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-023-09476-6
Ghanad, A. (2023). An overview of quantitative research methods. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Analysis, 6(08), 3794-3803. https://doi.org/10.47191/ijmra/v6-i8-52
Goh, S., Quince, Z., Wandel, A., Turner, J., & Park, S. S. (2024, December). Motivations to contract cheat in higher education: A Pre-COVID Pre-ChatGPT pilot study. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE 2024) (pp. 168-176). Christchurch, New Zealand: Engineers Australia.
Gray, B. C. (2022). Ethics, EdTech, and the rise of contract cheating. In Academic integrity in Canada: An enduring and essential challenge (pp. 189-201). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_9
Guerrero-Dib, J. G., Portales, L., & Heredia-Escorza, Y. (2020). Impact of academic integrity on workplace ethical behaviour. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 16(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-020-0051-3
HEC Pakistan. (2023). Anti-plagiarism policy. https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/policies/Documents/Plagiarism-Policy.pdf
Khan, Z. R. (2022). The devil’s in the detail–counting unique and organic contract cheating sites targeting higher education students in the UAE as a call to delegitimize them. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 18(1), 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-022-00114-z
Knapp, J. C., M. Hulbert, A., Knapp, J. C., & Hulbert, A. M. (2017). Academic dishonesty. Ghostwriting and the Ethics of Authenticity, 85-105. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31313-3_6
Kreitz, S., & Stoesz, B. M. (2025). Reducing undergraduate students’ trust of commercial contract cheating websites with an academic support literacy intervention. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 21(1), 28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-025-00202-w
Lancaster, T. (2022). Addressing contract cheating through staff-student partnerships. In Contract cheating in higher education: Global perspectives on theory, practice, and policy (pp. 219-232). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12680-2_15
Nardi, P. M. (2018). Doing survey research: A guide to quantitative methods. Routledge.
Parnther, C. (2022). The rise of contract cheating in graduate education. In Contract Cheating in Higher Education: Global Perspectives on Theory, Practice, and Policy (pp. 251-269). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12680-2_17
Ramdani, Z. (2018). Construction of academic integrity scale. International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology, 7(1), 87-97. https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsp.2018.3003
Rehman, R. R., & Waheed, A. (2014). Ethical perception of university students about academic dishonesty in Pakistan: Identification of student's dishonest acts. The Qualitative Report, 19(4), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1280
Sarwar, S., Idris, Z. M., & Ali, S. M. (2018). Paid academic writing services: A perceptional study of business students. International Journal of Experiential Learning & Case Studies, 3(1), 73-83.
Tauginienė, L., & Jurkevičius, V. (2017). Ethical and legal observations on contract cheating services as an agreement. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 13(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-017-0020-7
Thacker, E. J. (2022). Contract cheating and academic literacies: Exploring the landscape (Doctoral dissertation, Keele University).
Thomson, S., Amigud, A., & Huijser, H. (2023). Authenticity, originality, and beating the cheats. In Technology-Enhanced Learning and the Virtual University (pp. 1-23). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9438-8_20-1
Wallace, M. J., & Newton, P. M. (2014). Turnaround time and market capacity in contract cheating. Educational Studies, 40(2), 233-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2014.889597
Wang, J. (2025). The Importance of Academic Integrity and Academic Norms and Their Implementation Paths. Journal of Sociology and Education, 1(9). https://doi.org/10.63887/jse.2025.1.9.48
Xu, Y., & Li, W. (2023). The causes and prevention of commercial contract cheating in the era of digital education: A systematic & critical review. Journal of Academic Ethics, 21(2), 303-321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-022-09457-1
Yorke, J., Sefcik, L., & Veeran-Colton, T. (2022). Contract cheating and blackmail: a risky business?. Studies in Higher Education, 47(1), 53-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1730313
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Bulletin of Multidisciplinary Studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
