Aligning Academic Integrity Policy and Practice in Postgraduate Studies: A Focused Analysis on Contract Cheating

The evolving landscape of tertiary education, shaped by technological advancements, commercialisation, internationalisation and pedagogical shifts, has intensified concerns regarding academic misconduct. In response, institutions have developed academic integrity policies to safeguard educational standards; however, the effectiveness of these policies hinges on their practical implementation. While prior studies have examined academic integrity frameworks, many focus predominantly on traditional forms of misconduct, such as plagiarism, without adequately considering the complexities of how linguistic ambiguity, fragmented policy structures, and stakeholder accessibility impact compliance and enforcement in postgraduate education. This study seeks to fill this gap by critically evaluating the extent to which a Ghanaian university’s academic integrity policy aligns with contemporary challenges, particularly contract cheating. By benchmarking institutional policies against Bretag et al.’s academic integrity policy exemplar and Perkins and Roe’s technological explicitness framework. Through a qualitative case study approach of content analysis, the research explores the extent to which contract cheating is addressed within existing policy structures, highlighting definitional ambiguities, accessibility challenges, and stakeholder engagement deficiencies. Findings underscore a persistent policy-practice gap, exacerbated by fragmented institutional responses and the increasing prevalence of essay mills. This study advocates for an integrated, linguistically inclusive, and technologically responsive policy framework that aligns with contemporary academic integrity challenges in postgraduate education, ensuring sustained compliance and ethical scholarship in the digital era. Keywords: contract cheating, technological explicitness, academic integrity policy, postgraduate studies, policy-practice