Conference and seminar sessions in Plagiarism
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Designing unfair practice policies to encourage good academic practice in international students from Business and Economics
Presentation at DEE 2019,A number of recent media reports have highlighted a perceived ‘crisis’ in UK higher education associated with students cheating – either through plagiarising work, or otherwise through the reported growing problem of ‘commissioning’ (paying an individual or company to produce a bespoke essay). Of particular note in many reports is that non-EU international students make up a disproportionate proportion of discovered cases. One characteristic of this recent media reporting is that it frequently focusses on reporting and perpetuating a sense of moral outrage around plagiarism and associated offences. Whilst such exposure is useful in attracting the attention of the readership, politicians, and organisations responsible for academic standards, it is rarely helpful in encouraging institutions to consider the more holistic questions around understanding why students engage in such practices. Indeed, efforts by universities to eliminate these unfair practices have all the hallmarks of an ‘arms race’ – investments in detection and penalties increase, which drives ingenious ways to bypass detection, and yet has little impact on the problem overall – resulting in increasingly inefficient uses of resources. Through focus groups and surveys of Economics and Business students at a number of UK HE institutions, this research aims to shift this system and the associated discourse toward a more constructive outcome by broadening understanding of international students’ attitudes toward, and specific challenges around, unfair practices and policies. It is informed by the belief that unfair practice (UP) policies should facilitate the learning of students, as opposed to simply punishing students for non-compliance, and aims to produce a readily implementable set of policy guidelines which can be implemented across the sector.
