Is plagiarism changing over time? A 10-year time-lag study with three points of measurement

Abstract

Are more students cheating on assessment tasks in higher education? Despite ongoing media speculation concerning increased 'copying and pasting' and ghostwritten assignments produced by 'paper mills', few studies have charted historical trends in rates and types of plagiarism. Additionally, there has been little comment from researchers as to the best way to assess changes in plagiarism over time. In this paper we discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of research designs for assessing changes in plagiarism over time, namely: cross-sectional, longitudinal, and time-lag. We also report the results of our own time-lag study of plagiarism. We assessed self-reported engagement in, awareness of, and attitudes toward plagiarism in three comparable groups of students at the same university on three occasions, each separated by 5 years (2004, 2009, and 2014). The data from our study paints an encouraging picture of increased understanding and reduced occurrence of several forms of plagiarism, with no upward trend in verbatim copying or ghost writing. We suggest that technological and educational initiatives are counteracting the potential for increased plagiarism from online sources.Keywords: Plagiarism, academic integrity, cheating, ghost writing, trend, time-lag, longitudinal Is plagiarism changing 3 Recently in Australia (e.g., 2014Australia (e.g., -2015 there have been several dramatic and shocking reports on serious breaches of academic integrity. A prominent scandal was the discovery of the MyMaster paper mill, which provided customwritten assignments, mostly to Chinese-speaking students, at a number of universities across Australia (McNeilage & Visentin, 2014). This was followed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption's (ICAC, 2015) report into accusations of widespread cheating, particularly by international students, in Australia. Soon after, an internal report from the University of Sydney uncovered numerous instances and forms of academic misconduct among students. Among the documented breaches and allegations were instances of ghost writing, fabrication of data, and students employing others to sit exams in their place (Smith, 2015). Of course, such concerns and anecdotes are not limited to Australia and instances of, and responses to, plagiarism remain a serious concern for higher education globally.Revelations such as those in Australia always raise the question in the media 'Is cheating at university on the rise?'. Such media stories inevitably suggest that cheating has been facilitated by the internet, where students can easily copy and paste electronic content, and make contact with paper mills and ghost writers. However, such stories often neglect the balancing effects that technology has afforded in counteracting academic misconduct (Park, 2003). To be sure, over the past decade the internet has afforded students increased and unique opportunities to engage in plagiarism. By the same token, the internet has also provided significant opportunities for universities and academics...

Plagiarism in the Context of Education and Evolving Detection Strategies

“…Similar trends are observed elsewhere in the world, suggesting that technological advances and educational initiatives reduce the occurrence of ‘copy-and-paste writing’ over time (37). …”

Can we detect contract cheating using existing assessment data? Applying crime prevention theory to an academic integrity issue

“…As with all other aspects of modern day life, recent times have seen a move towards online activity for purchasing assignments. Despite this, the increased ease of access to potential sources of purchased assignments may not have necessarily corresponded to an increase in the prevalence of contract cheating, with estimates from a 10-year study in Australia indicating that prevalence rates of contract cheating declined slightly from 3.5% in 2004 to 2.8% in 2014 (Curtis & Vardanega, 2016). Alternative estimates have placed contract cheating prevalence rates close to 1% (Maxwell, Curtis, & Vardanega, 2006) and as high as 7.9% (Zafarghandi, Khoshroo, & Barkat, 2012).…”

How Prevalent is Contract Cheating and to What Extent are Students Repeat Offenders?

“…We also obtained the raw dataset from three studies, conducted at Western Sydney University (Curtis and Popal 2011;Curtis and Vardanega 2016;Maxwell et al 2006), that had previously only reported the results of the 5-point scale as means on that scale and as percentages of students who gave an answer other than "never". We aggregated these data with that from Zafarghandi et al (2012), who reported percentages for all 5 points of the scale used to measure the frequency of engagement in contract cheating.…”

“…Using the same measure five years later, Curtis and Popal (2011) reported that 3.5% of their sample had purchased an assignment that they submitted as their own. These studies were followed up by Curtis and Vardanega (2016), with data collected in 2014. Curtis and Vardanega (2016) found that rates of plagiarism had fallen for methods that were detectable via text-matching software, such as verbatim copying of published texts.…”

“…These studies were followed up by Curtis and Vardanega (2016), with data collected in 2014. Curtis and Vardanega (2016) found that rates of plagiarism had fallen for methods that were detectable via text-matching software, such as verbatim copying of published texts. However, contract cheating remained at a persistent, albeit low, rate of 2.8% of students.…”