e-Cheating in the UAE - A Critical Review of Existing Literature

The UAE’s education sector has been booming for the last decade or so, attracting students not only from within the country but from across borders. While primary, secondary and tertiary levels education providers are being scrutinized for their quality of education and teaching experience, and simultaneously the country is spiraling towards an eteaching/e-learning environment, very little or no research has been carried out to study the impact of all the technology that is readily available, the online sources that libraries are subscribing to, to the attitude of students towards e-cheating. Where focus has been given to software piracy and plagiarism to a smaller extent, the literature lacks depth and width in shedding light to recognizing factors that may help to understand what effects students’ attitude towards e-cheating and how. This paper, however, identifies research questions that have not been addressed sufficiently in the literature and suggests specific research areas for further investigation into a study to identify the societal factors and causal implications of increased online-sources and readily-available e-technology on students’ attitudes towards e-cheating in a globalized society such as the UAE.