Dear Colleagues
Bravo to P Waterhouse for a very thoughtful response. I get a bit
fed up with the plagiarism/cheating debate I have to confess. Half
the problem *may* lie in the nature of the tasks set, which require
regurgitation rather than application and interpretation, or which may
be so poorly structured that students don't really know what is
expected/what is the focus. Recently I was asked to second mark some
work which had been submitted by students who were working in
English as their third.or fourth or fifth language. Tutors were
worried about a lack of proficiency (not much evidence in the students'
work) and 'plagiarism' (some evidence of inept copying, paraphrasing).
The real problem lay in the assessment tasks which had the form e.g
'Discuss x'. or even 'X'. What could the poor students do to carve a
swathe through such huge topics?
I think that when we have problems with so-called plagiarism we should
question what we are doing.
PS That doesn't mean that there aren't some rogues around: but they
are not usually the ones accused!
Arlene
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> While any plagiarism has to be viewed as a major failure, one has
> to ask the question a failure of what.
>
> I often wonder if plagiarism is related to a lack of understanding of
> the educational process. I am sure students know they need to
> use the work of others - but often cannot use it in any more
> meaningful way than by quoting verbatim. Also the issue as to
> when do you quote and reference and when do you paraphrase?
>
> If indeed there are fewer cases of plagiarism related to group work
> this might suggest that the group process creates a better
> understanding of the learning task.
>
> I am not by nature a liberal - I am genuinely interested in what
> leads to cheating. I am sure that a student is a cheat by nature,
> but they use it as a tactic in specific situations. Perhaps as
> lecturers if we understood the factors that were likely to lead to
> cheating we could perhaps reduce the incidence through better
> assessment design.
>
> Correctly using the work of others is a graduate skill that perhaps
> needs more focus in our teaching.
>
> Peter Waterhouse
>
----------------------
Arlene Gilpin
Manager,
ESCalate
LTSN Education Subject Centre
Tel: 0117 9287040
http://www.escalate.ac.uk
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