Academic staff responses to student plagiarism in universities: A literature review from 1990 to 2019

Carmela De Maio, Kathryn Dixon and Shelley Yeo
Curtin University, Australia

Maintaining academic integrity is important for today's institutions of higher learning and this involves academic staff responding to breaches by their students. Plagiarism by students (student plagiarism) continues to be an area of concern, especially with the use of the Internet to find, copy and, sometimes, pay for ready-made essays and assignments. This form of academic misconduct ultimately affects not only the students and academic staff, but also the reputation of the institution itself and the integrity of its awards. Despite the need for consistency in addressing student plagiarism, it appears that the responses of academic staff to student plagiarism remain varied and inconsistent. This paper seeks to systematically review the key findings from the literature over the past three decades on academic staff responses to student plagiarism in universities. Despite the research showing that academic staff appear to respond to student plagiarism in varied and inconsistent ways, the factors and reasons why they do so remain unclear. It is suggested that more research to better understand academic staff and their identities, perceptions and belief systems may help find workable solutions to address these inconsistencies.
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Authors: Dr Carmela De Maio has many years experience teaching academic literacy, communication skills and law to a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate students in enabling programs, foundation units and law and criminology units in Australian universities. Her research interests are academic integrity, the first-year experience, student support and students' learning strategies. Email c.demaio@curtin.edu.au Dr Kathryn Dixon is a senior lecturer and Academic Integrity Officer in the School of Education at Curtin University. She coordinates training and development, honours and postgraduate programs and is Principal Supervisor for students on the doctoral program. Her research interests are student plagiarism, educational change and curriculum design. Email: k.dixon@curtin.edu.au Dr Shelley Yeo, now retired, was formerly Dean of Teaching and Learning in the School of Engineering at Curtin University, and was also the Assessment and Academic Integrity Officer for the School. Her research interests are the learning and teaching of physics and academic staff development. Email: syeo@westnet.net.au Please cite as: De Maio, C., Dixon, K. & Yeo, S. (2019). Academic staff responses to student plagiarism in universities: A literature review from 1990 to 2019. Issues in Educational Research, 29(4), 1131-1142. http://www.iier.org.au/iier29/demaio.pdf