Students fail to fathom plagiarism

Lee Adam.
Lee Adam.
University students have little understanding of plagiarism and how to avoid it, University of Otago research has revealed.

Education research fellow Lee Adam found while students had heard of plagiarism, and believed people who intentionally plagiarised should be punished, they had not considered the implications of unintentional plagiarism.

Examples of unintentional plagiarism included failing to self-reference if a student was repeating content from a previous work, and failure to reinterpret an academic’s view when paraphrasing them.

Dr Adam, who conducted the research for her PhD under the supervision of  Rachel Spronken-Smith and Vivienne Anderson, said interviews with 21 undergraduate University of Otago students showed  they believed they did not need to worry about plagiarism because they "had no intention of cheating".

Some students reported an imbalance of power between learners who did not know how to avoid plagiarism, and teachers who did, but did not share such information with their students.

"Many of the students expressed a belief that plagiarism could or should be viewed in terms of development, or that students should be scaffolded and supported through learning to avoid plagiarism, or to reference correctly, and becoming ‘good’ academic writers."

The study’s findings, published in the Higher Education journal, were indicative of a shift in  why students attended university, she said.

"Many reported university being a ‘job ticket’.

"They said that they didn’t see how concepts such as academic writing, or plagiarism was relevant to their future work lives."

The University of Otago revised its dishonest practice procedures policy in response to her research, Dr Adam said.

The policy was now called an "academic integrity policy", a name which adequately reflected an educative rather than punitive approach to dealing with plagiarism at the university, she said.

If their plagiarism was deemed serious enough, students could still be expelled,  she said.

A working group was developing an educational programme which would educate all first-year students at the university about how to avoid plagiarism.

It was not yet known if the programme would be offered online or in person, she said.

margot.taylor@odt.co.nz

Comments

It's not cheating mens rea, more inattention to detail, which is sloppy in the professional world. APA referencing style is on the Internet. Best not to Copywrite: copy and write.