Huge gap between students knowing, versus avoiding, plagiarism

Comprehensive training for scientific and academic writing should be instituted in higher education institutions in Rwanda and across Africa to promote the importance of academic integrity in scholarly work, improve students’ ability to apply skills to avoid plagiarism, and increase opportunities for publication.

This emerged from a 13 April study titled ‘Assessing Knowledge of and Attitudes Towards Plagiarism and Ability to Recognise Plagiaristic Writing Among University Students in Rwanda’, published in the Journal of Higher Education.

It is authored by Olivia Clarke, Saddam Bukuru, Jenae Logan and Rex Wong of the University of Global Health Equity in Butaro in Rwanda, and Wai Yin Debbie Chan of Harvard University in the United States.

According to the authors, this is the first nationwide study of its kind in Rwanda.

They write in the article: “This study presents an opportunity for higher education institutions and other stakeholders in Rwanda, or other similar contexts, to collaboratively establish clear standards, guidelines and training on plagiarism to increase standards of education, academic writing, and publications across higher education institutions.”

Academic plagiarism prevalence

The study was conducted to assess knowledge of and attitudes towards plagiarism, as well as the ability to recognise plagiaristic writing among university students in Rwanda.

An anonymous online questionnaire containing 10 knowledge questions, 10 attitude statements, and five writing cases with excerpts to test identification of plagiarism was administered between February and April 2021.

Out of the 330 university students from 40 universities who completed the survey, the study results showed that 75% have a high level of knowledge of plagiarism.

However, it highlighted a huge gap between knowing the principles of plagiarism and applying them. Results showed that students’ overall high knowledge level about plagiarism did not translate into the ability to recognise plagiaristic writings – only 11.6% of participants demonstrated this skill.

“While students might know plagiarism is wrong in most instances, they are simply not able to recognise it or apply key principles to avoid it,” the study said.

With regard to both knowledge of plagiarism and the ability to recognise it, masters degree-level students were much more likely to have higher skills in both areas compared to diploma or bachelor degree level students.

“It is likely that, the longer students stay in school, the more exposure they have in writing and reading within the discipline-specific literacy practices required of them, resulting in better understanding and avoidance of plagiarism,” the study postulated.

Significant gaps

The study found “significant gaps in understanding what constitutes plagiarism”. About 40% of participants did not know that expressing well-known common knowledge without a source is not considered plagiarism, and about 25% did not know that self-plagiarising is considered plagiarism.

About half of the participants did not think self-plagiarism was wrong, with more than half believing it should not be punished in the same way as plagiarism of others.

“In self-plagiarism, authors reuse their own texts that have already been published previously as if they were new ideas,” the study explained.

“Authors who self-plagiarise do not make any new contributions to the scholarly world. Such intent to deceive the readers is the main reason that self-plagiarism is considered wrong; readers should be informed about this duplication.”

The research demonstrated that there was “a general lack of understanding of the difference between citing themselves and reusing one’s own previous work”.

Over 20% of respondents did not know that hiring others to write some parts of their own paper was considered plagiarism.

While significantly more respondents (63.3%) indicated that all forms of plagiarism were unacceptable, 44.4% said plagiarism was unavoidable. Also, 31.3% of respondents said plagiarism should not be penalised after an assignment grade is finalised and released.

“These trends suggest that plagiarism was likely prevalent among the respondents, despite knowing that it is a punishable act,” the study pointed out.

More than 46% of respondents indicated that they would not change the words of an author who wrote something better than they could write it.

Although the official language in Rwanda is English, the most common language used is Kinyarwanda.

Adding to the linguistic complexity is that the government officially changed the medium of education from French to English in 2008, and for many citizens – including parents, teachers and students – English is not their first language, according to the study.

“This lower comfort with the language may help explain the desire to use the words of others who express arguments well in English.”

Measures to tackle plagiarism

The research argues that students may plagiarise because they lack essential skills and confidence in academic writing. They also may be driven to plagiarism to achieve better academic scores.

Therefore, the study called on higher education institutions in Rwanda and across Africa to prioritise academic and scientific writing development training for students.

With e-learning becoming more commonly used as technology advances, the development and utilisation of an online platform to promote best practices in scholarly writing should be considered, according to the study.

“Universities should be cognisant that such training should be integrated when the student first enters higher education at the diploma or bachelor degree level, and early on in their programme,” the authors wrote.

“This training should not only cover principles of avoiding plagiarism and ensuring academic integrity, for example, how to reference, cite and paraphrase correctly, as well as what constitutes plagiarism, but it should also cover principles of academic writing.”

Given that the mode of instruction in Rwandan higher education is English, students should also receive English writing training to build confidence in expressing ideas in a second language.

Because the study showed that “simply knowing about plagiarism does not necessarily mean that plagiarism can be correctly identified”, the authors suggest: “This foundational training must be combined with practical activities to promote and reinforce learning to application.

“Application of knowledge to practical examples will build students’ confidence in knowing how and when plagiarism occurs, and this can be directly applied to their own writing.

“Providing this comprehensive academic writing and how to avoid plagiarism is important for students to equip them to adhere to standards of academic integrity and produce acceptable academic work while at university, but is of particular importance with regard to authorship and publications, as the implications of plagiarism extend well beyond the time a student spends studying in a higher education institution,” according to the researchers.

“Approaches to plagiarism education must not only focus on these technical aspects of paraphrasing and citing correctly, but must also focus on the purpose of academic writing, which is knowledge dissemination, and the disciplinary norms and values of this.

“Students must be made aware that they are producers of knowledge through the academic work they produce at university and, therefore, should not write to avoid plagiarism, but write to produce new knowledge,” they pointed out.

The study indicated that African researchers are under-represented in first and last authorship positions in studies conducted in Africa because of the limited command of English for non-native English speakers and limited training in scientific writing, among other factors.

By enhancing students’ understanding of plagiarism and improving their scientific writing skills, African scholars may elevate their recognition in the publication space.

Higher education institutions should establish policies on plagiarism and enforce strict penalties if plagiarism occurs.

“Both pedagogical approaches and policy should also be extended to academic faculty, as academic integrity must be enforced at all levels in the academic world,” the study concluded.