Don Campbell reports that cheating on college campuses has become an epidemic. He says that beginning in high school students have the attitude that cheating is no big deal.
I wonder if the idea of taking short cuts in academics starts in elementary school when teachers have students copy material from published material and assemble it into “reports” without citing sources.
Probably this theme is familiar to most teachers and higher education faculty. To my amazement and protest, a high school English teacher required its students to read various quick notes of classic literature, not copies of original publications. This way, they get the basics. Reading the originals takes too much time, the academic counselor told me.
Campbell reports High schools don’t emphasize ethical values nearly enough, some experts argue, and students thus arrive at college with an attitude that it’s alright to cut corners, or they simply don’t understand what constitutes plagiarism … Combine that with the reigning cynicism that surrounds business, politics, sports and religion, and it is no surprise …
Campbell reports that faculty/teachers as well as students are parts of the problem.
Yes, I agree. I remember giving a doctoral student at a distinguished teacher preparation institution the option of taking an “F” or rewriting the paper she submitted for an assignment. She lifted a paragraph (eight to ten lines as I remember it) from an obscure (to me) journal on teaching reading and inserted it into her paper without attribution. She was preparing to teach teachers. She cried a lot, and didn’t redo the paper. Her advisor came unglued at my audicity of challenging one of his students, especially a woman. The department chair sided with the advisor. I let the grade stand. I understand she retook the class from her advisor and received an “A” that replaced the “F.”
But the issue of faculty participation and of what constitutes plagerism goes deeper and gets muddier, including in distinguished teacher preparation and related research.
I remember how surprised I was when a nationally distinguished chairman of my department lifted paragraphs without citation of what I cowrote with a third colleague. The chairman took publication credit on this vita. I was told informally that rank had its privileges in response to my challenge of the lack of citation.
I was also surprised when a former U.S. secretary of education lifted paragraphs without acknowledgment or permission from another of my writings, He included them in a proposal that later yielded a grant. Probably a graduate student assembled the grant for him, and also did not receive written credit for that intellectual activity.
One of the most prolific published educators in the past 30 years offered for years seminars to other educators about how to write for professional publication. Each seminar I remember attending in the doorway included more than 50 faculty members from across the country. He used a personal anecdote to illustrate how simple professional writing can be.
As a first year graduate student, his faculty advisor (a noted education researcher) assigned him to analyze a stack of data printouts and to draft a report. The graduate student reviewed the data, went to the library, found a published research report that used the same data analysis, copied the format, and adapted the text to fit the conditions of the study and data he had. He submitted the report draft at the end of the week to his surprised advisor. That former graduate student said he continued using the same writing formula. He was then a distinguished senior faculty member and professional journal editorial board member.
Before I heard him tell this story, I had wondered why so many professional texts appeared so similar in form and conclusions across journals.
Campbell concludes his review with this quote: “We have to inculcate in students the habits of character,” said Duke University’s (Timothy) Dodd, (executive director of the Center for Academic Integrity). “We have research that suggests that students who do not abide by the norms and standards of the academic community are more likely to violate the norms and standards of the workplace. Students need to hear consistently that academic integrity matters, and they need to understand consistently what the guidelines are as they apply in each and every class.”
I’m not sure Dodd’s benediction is sufficient.
I remember Sam Kirk’s anger with a master’s student who tried to copywrite her thesis. “Nothing you wrote is new. You have no right to take credit for the ideas you drew from others and assembled under your name.” As a condition of receiving her degree, she did not copywrite her thesis.
That condition seems worthy of reconsideration in education.