Congratulations to Dr Rebecca Awdry on her graduation!
15 February 2023
Dr Rebecca Awdry has completed her PhD journey with CRADLE and graduated in February 2023
Dr Rebecca Awdry’s doctoral thesis is titled ‘A criminological approach to understanding assignment outsourcing in higher education’. It was supervised by CRADLE Co-Director Professor Phill Dawson, CRADLE Honorary Fellow Associate Professor Wendy Sutherland-Smith and Dr Andrew Groves of Flinders University.
We congratulate Becca on her incredible achievement!
Becca’s research investigated student engagement in assignment outsourcing in higher education. Using an international survey released in 22 languages, she gathered qualitative and quantitative responses from students asking them to talk about their study behaviours, their knowledge or perceptions of other students study habits, as well as what students thought should be the outcomes applied to those involved in the outsourcing.
The research explored why and how students choose to outsource their assignments. Data was gathered on the reasons students gave for engagement in outsourcing, and who or where assignments were outsourced from (friends, family, other students or external sites).
This data provided an insight into the complex make-up of outsourcing behaviours, which can differ by formal (companies and websites) or informal (those known to students) sources, by mode (free, for money or in exchange for something), and for what purpose (as a referencing tool or study guide, or as an entire assignment to be submitted for academic credit).
Becca conducted her research within the domain of criminology. Criminological theories were aligned with both the learning of these dishonest practices, as well as in the continuation of outsourcing practices. She presented a combined theoretical approach to assignment outsourcing, explaining how behaviours may be learnt, reinforced, excused, rewarded and then modelled to others.
Publications
Becca’s publications include descriptive and statistical analysis papers of the quantitative elements of the pilot and main survey tool, a definitions paper, and a theoretical paper.
- Awdry, R., & Newton, P. M. (2019). Staff views on commercial contract cheating in higher education: a survey study in Australia and the UK. Higher Education, 78, 593-610. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00360-0
- Awdry, R. (2021). Assignment outsourcing: moving beyond contract cheating. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46(2), 220-235. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2020.1765311
- Awdry, R., & Ives, B. (2021). Students cheat more often from those known to them: Situation matters more than the individual. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46(8), 1254-1268 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2020.1851651
- Awdry, R., Dawson, P., & Sutherland-Smith, W. (2022). Contract cheating: To legislate or not to legislate-is that the question? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(5), 712-726. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1957773
- Awdry, R., & Ives, B. (2022). International Predictors of Contract Cheating in Higher Education. Journal of Academic Ethics. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-022-09449-1
- Awdry, R., & Groves, A. (in press). Why they do and why they don’t. A combined criminological approach to understanding assignment outsourcing. International Journal of Educational Integrity.
Where to from here?
Becca is currently looking for her next higher education leadership role, where she can bring her knowledge to an area related to academic quality, teaching and learning, the student experience, and academic integrity. In a world where open artificial intelligence threatens integrity on a daily basis, she believes that universities should be shaking themselves up a bit more and responding to the disruption in a more radical way.
Becca is involved in a project as a casual researcher with Monash University assessing the impacts of online exams and proctoring systems on student well-being, experience and integrity. In addition to short-term projects, Becca has been writing various publications, some based on her thesis, and others new. Watch this space!
We asked Becca to describe her research and provide some reflections and highlights of her study experience.
My PhD journey has felt at times like a never-ending battle! I originally started my PhD elsewhere, but after several changes and not feeling like I was in the right place, I moved to Deakin, joining CRADLE in 2016 as a part-time student. Until the last year of my candidature I had very busy senior leadership roles in universities which made progress more difficult and slow.
My supervisors were immensely supportive and always encouraged me to do what I could do around other commitments
However, being my own worst enemy, I proceeded to push ahead with my own imposed deadlines and decided to run the research as an international project. Despite some complications with ethical differences in research managements, academic calendars and time zones, the survey was released on schedule after a huge amount of work in piloting, translating and survey building in different languages.
This was the most complicated and arduous part of the journey, but one which taught me great skills in the management of complex project management and definitely enhanced my communication and influence skills!
Imposter syndrome was something I regularly felt though. Even after completion, when I was contacted by The Guardian to write an opinion piece on academic integrity. To any current PhD students, don’t worry, one day imposter syndrome will go, I’ll let you know when!
I often found the writing process hard and do not consider myself to be an ‘academic’, despite the protestations of my supervisors. To get over writer’s block, when time allowed, I would take myself off to a remote spot by the coast or in the bush with no phone signal and just write. No matter how bad the text was, I had pages and pages of work that I could then edit. For me, this was the most productive way of working and helped moved me away from my prior ‘perfectionist’ way of writing, wanting every sentence and paragraph to be just right before moving on.
The PhD taught me so many skills which I also took into my jobs, and vice versa. Despite having to take two intermissions, and COVID-19 disrupting the flow somewhat, I still managed to finish within the timeframe I wanted. Earlier in my journey I was lucky to have been able to present initial data to different European and Australasian higher education conferences.
The move to CRADLE was the best thing that I could have done, and I am so grateful for the support, guidance, and expertise that I had from my wonderful supervisors and the CRADLE team overall (and no, they did not pay me to say this!). Being a part-time Cloud student for most of my candidature, I felt somewhat on the edge of things, however, the last couple of years has enabled me to be far more involved in CRADLE discussion and feel that I belonged.
Contact Becca
Come and study with us at CRADLE!
Are you a domestic or international student interested in assessment and/or digital learning? Applications for CRADLE’s PhD Scholarship Scheme for 2023 are now open!
