Plagiarism as a threat to learning: An educational response

Abstract

Plagiarism is widely discussed in higher education. Concern about the rising level and severity of cases of student plagiarism continues to grow. Worries about student plagiarism are heard in many countries around the world. This chapter will not rehearse the full range of issues linked to student plagiarism. Guidance on how it might be defined, on how students can be taught the necessary skills, and on how cases can be handled when they occur are easy to find on the web (see, for example, JISC-iPAS-theUKgovernment sponsored Internet Plagiarism Advisory Service.Guidance is equally common in printed format (Carroll, 2007). Instead, the chapter explores the connections between learning and plagiarism and explains why this link should be central to discussions about the issue. The chapter also discusses how the link with learning differentiates the treatment of plagiarism within higher education from the way in which the issue is handled outside the academy. It argues that, in the former, discussions of plagiarism should centre on whether or not the submitted work warrants academic credit and not, as happens outside of higher education, on the integrity of the plagiarist. Actions designed to clarify what is meant by learning and to encourage students to do their own work are also likely to discourage plagiarism but this becomes a secondary and valuable offshoot of a pedagogic process rather than the goal of a catch and punish view of dealing with the issue. The chapter begins by reviewing why it is difficult to keep the focus on learning when so many pressures would distract from this goal. It then considers what theories of learning are especially useful in understanding why higher education teachers and administrators should be concerned about students who plagiarise and concludes with suggestions about how to encourage students to do their own work rather than to copy others' efforts or commission others to do the work for them.