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The 4PA of plagiarism: A psycho-academic profile of plagiarists
No full textPlagiarism is considered to be a serious transgression in the academic world. Due to the perception that plagiarism is rampant among both students and professors, the Indonesian government has established policies to prevent plagiarism in academia. Varieties of sanctions, ranging from score reduction to the revocation of granted academic titles have been applied to those who are caught committing this serious academic offense. However, the severity of the sanctions seems unable to put an end to plagiarism. Because severe sanctions seem unable to eradicate or even alleviate plagiarism, it might be assumed that the tendency towards plagiarism is a personal trait. Regardless of the presence or absence of opportunities and the severity of the potential sanctions, some individuals seem to be prone to plagiarism. In this study, five variables were used as predictors of plagiarism: procrastination, performance, personality, perfectionism, and achievement motivation. They were chosen to represent personal inclination, ability, and value, which separately have been reported to be correlated with plagiarism (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010). This study tries to combine those variables and has named it the 4PA of plagiarism.
This study used a sample of 362 undergraduate psychology students. The data were collected during the students' final exam, using seven scales. Plagiarism was measured using the Academic Practices Survey (APS) (Roig & DeTommaso, 1995) and the Personal Experiences with Plagiarism Scale (PEPS) (Bouman, 2009). Procrastination was measured using the Aitken Procrastination Inventory (API) (Aitken, 1982) and the Procrastination Assessment Scale – Student (PASS) (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). Academic score performance was taken from the faculty's academic archives (subjects' GPAs and scores in Introduction to Psychology). Personality was measured using the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) (http://ipip.ori.org/). Perfectionism was measured using the Almost Perfect Scale (APS-SO) (Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001). Achievement motivation was measured using the Achievement Motivation Inventory (AMI) (Schuler, Thornton, Frintrup, & Mueller-Hanson, 2004).
Both plagiarism scales (APS and PEPS) produced similar results (r=.419). Four of the five predictors have significant correlations with plagiarism. The highest correlations were found between plagiarism and the frequency of procrastination/PASS (rAPS & rPEPS =.270 = .202) and habitual procrastination/API (rAPS = .217 & rPEPS =.173). Plagiarists tend to have low conscientiousness (IPIP; rAPS = -.212 & rPEPS = -.178). A small but significant correlation was found between plagiarism and perfectionism (APS-SO; rAPS = -.143& rPEPS =-.124). Plagiarists tend to have low achievement motivation (AMI; rAPS = -.219 & rPEPS =-.183). Plagiarism is not significantly correlated with academic achievement. The contribution of the four predictor variables was rooted in academic procrastination. The dynamics of these variables for predicting plagiarism are discussed
Why students plagiarise from the internet: The views and practices in three Norwegian upper secondary classrooms
No full textIn a two-part mixed methods study, internet-based plagiarism amongst Norwegian upper secondary students was measured and related to performance level and knowledge of source use. Subsequently, interviews were conducted to explore these students' views on internet access and plagiarism during essay writing. The quantitative part of the study showed that 75% of the 67 students in the study plagiarised from the online sources and that plagiarism accounted for 25% of the total amount of text. Students with a higher grade in written Norwegian plagiarised less than those with a lower grade. Further, students more familiar with the correct use of sources did not plagiarise as much as students with less awareness. In the qualitative part of the study, individual interviews with 29 of the students indicated that the students wanted to spend as little time and effort as possible on the task and a great majority of the students wanted internet access whether they judged this an obstacle to their learning or not. They also preferred to have free access to internet content regardless of its relevance to the essay, and plagiarism was chosen as a writing strategy regardless of whether or not it was acknowledged to be a moral problem. More proficient writers explained their use of the internet in a more sophisticated way than less proficient writers. With these findings in mind, the different potential consequences of internet access for proficient and less proficient writers are discussed. Finally, some suggestions for further research are put forward
Anti-plagiarism strategies: How to manage it with quality in large-scale thesis productions
No full textMore than 400 students write their bachelor's or master's theses each year at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University. In order to support self-driven student thesis work and to reduce the burden on supervisors for feedback on basic skills, an IT support system called SciPro was developed. An important consideration in developing this system was to take actions to reduce plagiarism. Both prevention and detection were accomplished with the following: 1) prevention by policy guidelines, FAQ, face-to-face information, peer-reviews and transparency in the process of recurrent online thesis manuscript hand-ins; and 2) detection by automatic originality check of the final manuscript enabled by integration between SciPro and Turnitin. Explicit rules and regulations as well as frequent education about anti-plagiarism targeting both students and supervisors were also important parts of the prevention strategy. Current results include: 1) substantial improvements in policy development; 2) successful integration of anti-plagiarism software; and 3) recurrent educational activities for students and supervisors have raised the awareness of plagiarism issues at the department. Future development includes three new technical approaches in order to manage sophisticated antiplagiarism controls efficiently, with a quality standard not possible by other means, in large-scale thesis production: 1) automated and integrated (SciPro/Turnitin) recurrent anti-plagiarism controls of submitted thesis manuscripts at various stages in the thesis text production process; 2) automated anti-plagiarism controls of thesis texts submitted in SciPro by comparing consistency in style of writing between different versions of thesis manuscripts handed in by the same student during the process of producing the thesis text; and 3) an automated check of thesis manuscripts submitted to SciPro for identification of images/figures/illustrations/graphs copied from the Internet through integration of an image pattern recognition programme. These measures taken together will significantly increase thesis quality by verifying authenticity to a very high degree and systematising the anti-plagiarism procedures. They will also substantially reduce tedious, boring and immensely time consuming manual work for administrators and supervisors who need to guarantee that theses do not contain plagiarised texts or illustrations
Exploring Nigerian postgraduate students' experience of plagiarism: A phenomenographic case study
No full textIn light of the high number of Nigerian students who gain admission to overseas universities for postgraduate studies, there is an increasing need to understand their background and previous study experiences. There are few studies of the experiences or views of Nigerian postgraduate students about the concept of plagiarism. The occurrence of plagiarism in the writings of some Nigerian students who travel overseas for graduate studies, like that of other students studying in a new academic context, has become a concern in recent times. This paper aims to contribute to the current research on student plagiarism around the world by exploring the concept of plagiarism of Nigerian postgraduate students studying in a United Kingdom university. It presents results from a phenomenographic study which utilised semi-structured interviews to acquire data. In analysing the data, the views expressed by participants, the manner in which these were expressed and the context in which the views were expressed were paramount. Preconceived ideas were put aside while analysing the data, letting the data speak for itself rather than viewing the data from existing theoretical structures or presuppositions. The emerging themes were noted and comparative views of experiences were arrived at from pooling and comparing quotations across several participants. An outcome space was identified and the emerging overarching theme relating to their experiences was found to be the fear of not understanding the underlying concept of plagiarism. The students expressed deep concern about the simultaneous awareness of the need to acquire the requisite academic writing skills and utilising them, while being faced with coursework and looming submission deadlines. The results and their implications are discussed with regards to the students’ adaptation and a way forward is proffered
State-of-the-art in detecting academic plagiarism
No full textThe problem of academic plagiarism has been present for centuries. Yet, the widespread dissemination of information technology, including the internet, made plagiarising much easier. Consequently, methods and systems aiding in the detection of plagiarism have attracted much research within the last two decades. Researchers proposed a variety of solutions, which we will review comprehensively in this article. Available detection systems use sophisticated and highly efficient character-based text comparisons, which can reliably identify verbatim and moderately disguised copies. Automatically detecting more strongly disguised plagiarism, such as paraphrases, translations or idea plagiarism, is the focus of current research. Proposed approaches for this task include intrinsic, cross-lingual and citation-based plagiarism detection. Each method offers unique strengths and weaknesses; however, none is currently mature enough for practical use. In the future, plagiarism detection systems may benefit from combining traditional character-based detection methods with these emerging detection approaches
Book Review: Changing the paradigm: Education as the key to a socially inclusive future, Tom Stehlik and Jan Patterson
No full textBook review by
Dr Susanne Owen
Adjunct Research Fellow
School of Education, University of South Australi
What the Blazers? The effect of cultural symbols on class identity and learning outcomes
No full textThis paper examines the relationship between school clothing and learning identity. The paper, part of a wider, qualitative, narrative investigation into the learning experiences of white, working-class baby-boomers males, argues that an individual’s preference for types of school clothing contributes to the construction of his/her cultural and social identity. It is suggested that items of school clothing influence an individual’s either solidarity with, or distance from, school practices and peers. Cultural capital, habitus, cultural evolution and meme theory are used to understand the effects of school uniforms on individuals’ identity construction and learning outcomes. It is suggested that embodied performance not only has the potential to reflect a student's masculine competence (Connell, 2009) but it can also symbolize the individual's understanding of physical attractiveness and intelligence.
Keywords: Baby-boomer education, masculinities, school clothing, cultural capital, cultural evolution, identity, individual agenc
Editorial Volume 9(2)
No full textWelcome to the last issue of the IJEI for 2013.
It has been an exciting year with numerous conferences and research on academic integrity around the world. Auckland University of Technology kicked off the year with the Fraud, Fakery and Fabrication: Academic and research integrity conference, the International Center for Academic Integrity held their annual conference in San Antonio on 28 February, the National Roundtable and Australian National Speaking Tour for the Exemplary Academic Integrity Project was also held in late February and early March, the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity was held in Montreal in May, the Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond Conference shared the results of the 'Impact of policies for plagiarism in higher education across Europe' project in Brno, Czech Republic in June, and the 6th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity showcased the work of Australian Office for Learning and Teaching commissioned projects on academic integrity in Sydney in October.
With so much interest and research on this topic across a range of countries and contexts, it is perhaps not surprising that the current issue is an eclectic mix of reflective, conceptual, empirical and case study work from researchers spanning six countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Norway, Australia, Sweden, Indonesia and the UK. The issue covers diverse topics extending from the development of academic skills, to motivations and predictors of student plagiarism, systems to reduce plagiarism and the responsibility of universities to provide marketing information based on ethical principles of honesty and trustworthiness. Student groups represented include secondary school, undergraduate and postgraduate. Radhika Iyer-O'Sullivan, formerly of the British University in Dubai, analyses faculty feedback, samples of student writing and Turnitin Similarity Reports to determine if teaching critical reading as a threshold concept results in critical thinking and subsequently improved critical writing skills. While the sample was small and the results inconclusive, Iyer-O'Sullivan makes the case that teaching critical reading assists students to understand the importance of using supporting evidence to develop a convincing academic argument.
Håvard Skaar and Hugo Hammer from Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway use a mixed-methods approach to explore secondary school students' plagiarism of internet sources in essay writing. The survey of 67 students indicated that 75% of students reported plagiarising from online sources and that plagiarism accounted for 25% of the total amount of text. Students with a higher grade in written Norwegian plagiarised less than those with a lower grade, and students more conversant with appropriate citation practices plagiarised less than those students less familiar with referencing conventions. Qualitative feedback from interviews with 29 students indicated that the students wanted to spend as little time and effort as possible on the assessment task and that plagiarism was chosen as a writing strategy, with little reflection on the moral aspects on this decision.
In contrast, Rebecca Awdry, from the University of Canberra, and Rick Sarre, from the University of South Australia, found that the university students in their study expressed strong ethical positions in relation to plagiarism, arguing that it was cheating and dishonest. Awdry and Sarre explored students' motivations to plagiarise using a mixed methods approach, and analysed the data through the prism of criminological theory. The authors conclude that while rational choice theory provides some insight into student breaches of academic integrity, there is an apparent disconnect between the way that academics view students' behaviour and how students themselves express their motivations. In agreement with key writers in the field (Bertram Gallant, McCabe, Bretag et al.), Awdry and Sarre conclude that higher education providers should focus less on detection and punishment and more on developing a values-based culture of integrity.
Based on a sample of 362 undergraduate psychology students, and in the context of the Indonesian government's position that any form of plagiarism "is a serious offense that may even be classified as an illegal action", Ide Bagus Siaputra, from Universitas Surabaya, explores the proposition that "regardless of the presence or absence of opportunities and the severity of the potential sanctions, some individuals seem to be prone to plagiarism". Siaputra builds on the work of Williams, Nathanson and Paulhus (2010), to propose five variables as predictors of plagiarism, including procrastination, performance, personality, perfectionism, and achievement motivation, and names the model 'the 4PA of plagiarism'. Findings from the author's study indicate that procrastination was the key predictor of plagiarism, followed by achievement motivation.
Looking to provide a multi-pronged response to student plagiarism, Ken Larsson and Henrik Hansson from Stockholm University, Sweden share the results of an innovation at their university. The digital system called SciPro was developed to support independent student thesis work, decrease the burden on supervisors for feedback on basic skills, and reduce plagiarism. The system includes a number of modules which facilitate management, communication and learning. According to the authors, SciPro works to prevents plagiarism by providing: 1) clear instructions about rules and regulations for students and supervisors; 2) an online peer-review system; 3) transparent online communication and file storage of accumulated manuscripts; and 4) a final seminar module enabling automatic generation of originality reports from Turnitin when students upload their final thesis manuscripts. Larsson and Hansson report that the implementation of SciPro has resulted in substantial improvements in policy development, successful integration of anti-plagiarism software, and an increased awareness of plagiarism issues.
The final paper in the issue reminds us that academic integrity is an issue which underpins every aspect of the educational enterprise and goes well beyond plagiarism in student assessment. Educational psychologist, John Bradley, from the UK, offers a typology of nine misleading data-based marketing claims based on his examination of UK university prospectuses. Bradley's analysis leads him to assert that marketing of higher education should aspire to higher ethical standards than marketing in general because of the high stakes involved for a potentially vulnerable group, and because the reputation of the university is founded on having high standards of scholarship. Rather than rely on external regulators to ensure the authenticity of marketing claims, the author advocates a system of voluntary peer review of university marketing prospectuses based on the principles of research and publication ethics.
I trust you will enjoy this varied issue which will interest teachers, researchers, policymakers, administrators and marketers of education, in both secondary and tertiary contexts. Volume 10(1) of the IJEI, to be published in June 2014, will include the best reviewed papers from the Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond Conference, Czech Republic 2013, along with appropriate papers submitted via the IJEI platform.
Tracey Bretag, IJEI Editor
Email: [email protected]
Patterns in plagiarism and patchwriting in science and engineering graduate students' research proposals
No full textAs part of a larger study, written research proposals were collected from 115 science and engineering master’s and doctoral students and reviewed by SafeAssign™ with approximately one-third of them containing sentences that were plagiarised as previously reported in Gilmore, Strickland, Timmerman, Maher and Feldon (2010). (We use the term plagiarism, but do not imply any intentional deceit by the students.) Here we report on the patterns of plagiarised material in the hope that it will contribute to the growing awareness of the problem of plagiarism in graduate schools as well as provide insight into the causes of plagiarism. Instances of plagiarism were coded as to 1) the type of source material (primary, secondary, technical, or popular literature), 2) the nature of the inappropriate use (directly copied, a few words changed, minor grammar alterations, or attempted but insufficient paraphrasing), 3) where in the proposal (introduction, methods, results, or discussion) the plagiarism appeared, and 4) whether or not the plagiarised information was cited and if it was, whether or not the citation was accurate. Plagiarised text was found in 28% of the proposals. Clustering of certain patterns of behaviour, such as directly copying material from popular literature while paraphrasing information from primary scientific literature, were examined in an attempt to gain insight into the cause of the plagiarism. It is our interpretation that the source of the plagiarism was a lack of familiarity with scientific writing as a genre and lack of awareness of its norms and conventions
Addressing disengagement from schooling through community action networks
No full textEducators and policy makers in Australia have been concerned for some time with ensuring that young people aged 15-19 successfully engage with society through either ‘learning or earning’. For most of this cohort this means completing secondary school, and for many going on to further education and employment. A significant number of young people however disengage from formal schooling and find it difficult to re-engage due to a number of reasons – socio-economic status; mental health issues, family breakdown, or lack of relevance and meaning of the school curriculum to their lives.
This paper will review recent research conducted in Australia into the reasons why young people disengage from schooling, and outline some strategies and programs that have been successful in addressing these issues. This includes recognizing that disengagement can begin in the early years of schooling and is even inter-generational; and that alternative learning programs are often better when based outside of schools involving the wider community, other agencies, and other professionals including social workers and youth workers working in collaboration with teachers