The Dark Arts
Academic Integrity, Plagiarism and Cheating
The Dark Arts
The dark arts of cheating and plagiarism is of great concern to adult educators as academic integrity underpins the confidence in education institutions, qualifications and graduate outcomes. As an educator and assessor there is a great responsibility to ensure the assessment judgements, we make are based on reliable evidence. When we make assessment judgements, we are confirming that a learner is able to safely and competently undertake a skill or has knowledge to support their practice. If we make the wrong decision based on inaccurate evidence (through cheating) this can have significant consequences including safety in the workplace once the learner graduates, reputation of the training organisation, personal and professional reputation of the learner once they are in the workplace as well for the assessor. Academic integrity is essential if the reliability of the training and graduate outcomes is to reflect high quality education.
Unfortunately, breaches of academic integrity have significant effects on individuals and institutions. Plagiarism and cheating are more common than one might have considered with one survey showing that 68% of undergraduate students admitted to cheating on a test or assignment. (1) Take a moment and consider….68% admitted they cheated! Now think about your own student cohort. Is it possible that this is happening in your cohort? If there are some alarm bells ringing in the distance read on!
Intentional vs Unintentional
It is important to note that there is deliberate, intentional cheating and plagiarism as well as unintentional, but many institutions have identical consequences regardless of whether breaches of academic integrity were intentional or not. Let’s look at some forms of intentional, deliberate cheating and plagiarism first.
Intentional Cheating & Plagiarism
No doubt you have heard of, or even experienced, students purchasing assessment tasks or answers to tests and presenting it as their own work. This is probably one of the severest and most dishonest methods of cheating. This requires a deliberate and intentional course of action with a calculated intent to deceive. Along similar lines with the same level of severity is the copying or stealing of another student’s work (with or without their consent). Other common forms of deliberate cheating and plagiarism include:
Submitting your own work for another unit/assessment without citing or referencing that it has been used before. Most assessments are required to be unique, new pieces of work.
Copying sections of text word for word without referencing the source with the intent deceiving the reader that this was written and developed by themself.
Inserting an incorrect reference for the information provided (usually a copied piece of work, paragraph etc) with the intent to hide where the source actually came from.
Paraphrasing but not providing a reference. This aims to again deceive the reader that the thoughts and ideas provided were developed by the student.
Paraphrasing by changing a few words in the original text (these students love thesauruses!) Yep, this is still a form of plagiarism.
Citing a source but knowing that the source does not exist.
Citing a source but not accurately representing what the author has intended or taking the source out of context.
Collusion is another deliberate form of cheating that involves more than one student. Collusion can occur when students advise other students of what to expect in an assessment, share work, provide answers or work together to complete an assessment where group work is not part of the assessment process. Collusion can be both intentional and unintentional, so it is important that students are made aware of what collusion is and examples of what it looks like.
Unintentional Plagiarism and Cheating
On the other hand, students can often unintentionally plagiarise and cheat. This can be especially true when they are new to study and the policies of the organisation they are studying with. Some common forms of unintentional plagiarism include:
Paraphrasing that reflects the original source too closely but does include a reference.
Mixing up references/sources as they are still developing their study skills and may not yet have developed an effective system to track and use all references appropriately.
Misrepresenting the content of the source as they did not fully understand the concepts. This is different to intentional cheating as there is no calculated desire to deceive the reader.
Errors in the citation such as the date or author’s name.
Working on assessments with other students where group work is not a required component of the assessment, sharing their experiences in practical assessments or sharing results and feedback received on assessments with other students. Students often undertake this activity not realising they are actually colluding. While the intent is not to deliberately cheat the result is the same.
Unintentional plagiarism and cheating is still a significant problem that needs to be addressed with the aim of minimising incidences of these occurring.
Combating the Dark Arts
As an educator, I always find it saddens me when I suspect that a student has cheated in their work as I know there are significant ramifications and consequences for their actions. I also know that any suspicions of cheating and plagiarism is going to require time and effort on my part.
Identifying Plagiarism and Cheating
The first thing you can do as an educator is to realise that plagiarism and cheating occurs more often than we would like to consider. Once we have an open mindset, we can then begin to identify plagiarism and cheating. In my practice as an educator, I find the following strategies are helpful to identify breaches:
‘Listen’ to the language of the writer – note changes in expression.
Change in the font or text size (indicates direct cut and paste from the source)
Citations that don’t seem to match the text/answer – the more familiar you are with an assessment or unit of study the more familiar you will be with the common sources’ students refer to
Change in style or quality of work
Review previous work of the student
Grade/assess multiple student submissions at the same time so that you can become aware of patterns or similarities
Use text matching software
Investigate if there is something that does not appear right.
Addressing Breaches
Depending upon your organisation cheating and plagiarism may have the same consequences for intentional and unintentional breaches of academic integrity, whereas others may have a scaffolded approach. It is essential that you become familiar with how your organisation manages breaches in academic integrity. It is essential that any suspicions of plagiarism and cheating are investigated. If evidence is found then action will need to be taken.
Deliberate, intentional breaches of academic integrity (students practicing the ‘Dark Arts’) will require a combined and coordinated approach including teaching staff, managers and leaders within the educational programme. These deliberate breaches, if proven, will usually incur severe penalties for the student including failure of the unit of study or expulsion from the education institution along with the additional loss of their reputation.
I prefer an educational or restorative practice approach to unintentional breaches of academic integrity, but make sure you are following your organisations policies and procedures. For these students it is important that they are given the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge to prevent further instances of plagiarism and cheating. Taking time to listen to their concerns and address the issue with compassion can provide meaningful development for our students.
Preventing Plagiarism and Cheating
Yes, I realise everyone is now going to be looking at assessments in a new light (68% admitted to cheating did you say?) So what can we do to prevent plagiarism and cheating occurring? So glad you asked this very important question. Here are my top 5 tips:
Provide education at the start of a student’s study journey on what is plagiarism and cheating that includes specific, concrete examples. Students know they are not allowed to cheat, but many may be unaware of what cheating can look like, so painting the picture can be helpful for example, explaining that studying learning materials together is encouraged, but assessments need to be completed independently.
Ensure students understand that plagiarism is stealing. Not many of us would be happy to be tarnished with the reputation of stealing something.
Correlate cheating behaviours to how these can be exhibited long-term such as how these behaviours could easily occur in the workplace. For example, signing off on documentation or work that has not been completed or is not their own.
Give practice opportunities for learning how to paraphrase. Provide learning sessions that include reading of text and then practicing paraphrasing and referencing. This can also be a useful group activity once learners have completed the paraphrasing to compare each group member’s work with the original text and discuss.
Ensure students fully understand the consequences and the severity for breaches of academic integrity in your organisation and how this might affect them into the future.
Conclusion
I am under no illusion that the ‘Dark Arts’ will continue to be practiced amongst learners, but it is essential that as educators we commit to preventing, identifying and dealing with breaches in academic integrity. This is essential if we are to maintain faith in the training or qualification, the training provider and our own reputation. It also ensures that we can continue to collect reliable evidence to support our assessment judgements.
Author
Kate Ridge – Director of Transformation Consultancy
Kate is the Senior Consultant for Transformation Consultancy and provides services to support adult educators improve their practice along with co-hosting the podcast Education Transformation. Kate has over 19 years’ experience working in the health care industry and the vocational education and training (VET/TVET) sectors. Kate is passionate about assisting educators develop their practice in education and facilitation in order to create positive and rewarding student outcomes.
Works Cited
1. McCabe, D. Dr. Statistics. International Center for Academic Integrity. [Online] [Cited: March 4, 2021.] http://www.academicintegrity.org/statistics/.