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Chinese university English teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and professional experience concerning plagiarism
Author
Sun, Xiaoya
Supervisor
Hu, Guangwei
Abstract
In the past few decades, plagiarism has engendered increasing concern 111 academia. Previous studies have investigated the issue from various perspectives, including students' and teachers' understanding of plagiarism, potential causes of plagiarism, teaching practices that could educate students against plagiarism, and institutional policies on plagiarism. However, most of these studies have been conducted 111 Anglophone or English-as-second-language (ESL) contexts, while English-as-foreign-language (EFL) contexts such as China have received far less attention. As a result, little is known as to what criteria for plagiarism are held in Chinese academia, to what extent these criteria concur with those widely accepted in the Anglo-American academic context, and how Chinese academic institutions are responding to issues related to plagiarism. As an attempt to address these gaps, the present study adopts a mixed-methods approach to investigating Chinese university English teachers' perceptions of and attitudes towards plagiarism, and the impacts of teaching experience, overseas educational experience, and levels of education thereon.
To achieve this aim, this study utilized a textual judgment task, a paraphrasing practices survey, and semi-structured interviews to collect data from 108 Chinese university English teachers. The teachers' responses to the textual judgment task, including judgments on different rewritten versions of the same given paragraph, ratings of rewritten versions that they identified as guilty of plagiarism, and open-ended justifications provided for their judgments, were analyzed to explore their understandings of intertextuality, attitudes towards recognized transgressive intertextual practices, as well as their criteria for plagiarism and proper paraphrasing. ANOVAs were run to determine whether levels of education, overseas academic training, and teaching experience had an impact on the teachers' knowledge of plagiarism and how knowledge of plagiarism, academic background and teaching experience would relate to their stance on recognized plagiarism. Writing samples in the paraphrasing practices survey were examined for patterns in these teachers' textual appropriation behaviors, such as whether they would borrow strings of consecutive words from the original paragraph provided. Chi-square tests were run on a measure of verbatim copying from the original text to identify possible influences on the teachers' textual borrowing practices. Responses in the interviews were analyzed to reveal their professional experience of plagiarism, including previous plagiarism-related academic training, dealing with student plagiarism, teaching of plagiarism knowledge, as well as knowledge and understanding of institutional policies on plagiarism.
Several major findings emerged from this study. First of all, in general, the teachers' knowledge of plagiarism, stance towards plagiarism, and textual appropriation practices showed that their perceptions of plagiarism were more similar to those of Anglo-American teachers than those reported in previous studies. Arguably, this is partially attributable to these teachers' exposure to English academic writing and the need to deal with student plagiarism. It also suggests the trend that Anglo-American conceptions of plagiarism and intertextual conventions are becoming increasingly accepted in the Chinese academic community.
Second, the statistical analyses revealed different contributing factors to the teachers' knowledge of plagiarism, stance towards recognized plagiarism, and paraphrasing practices. Inconsistent with findings of previous studies, none of the variables examined was found to impact knowledge of plagiarism, suggesting the complexity of the issue. Years of teaching experience was found to be significantly correlated with plagiarism stance, in that the more experience one had, the more lenient s/he would become towards plagiarism. This points to the need to re-educate teachers, update their knowledge of plagiarism and strengthen their awareness of the seriousness of the issue. Whether a respondent had overseas academic experience proved to be a significant predictor of paraphrasing practices, with those who had overseas experience being less likely to appropriate strings of three or more words from the original text, suggesting the positive influence of exposure to the Anglo-American conventions of plagiarism and source use.
Third, Chinese universities in general did not seem to attach as much importance to the issue of plagiarism as Anglo-American universities do. The interviewees reported an absence of an institutional framework on plagiarism and a lack of teacher attention to the issue. To effectively prevent plagiarism, not only should policies and regulations be established, but sufficient support be provided to both teachers and students on teaching about plagiarism and avoiding plagiarism, respectively.
These findings point to the conclusion that although Chinese university English teachers seem to demonstrate a good understanding of plagiarism and acceptable paraphrasing practice, Chinese universities are not serving their role effectively in educating students about (il)legitimate intertextual practices. More institutional and pedagogical efforts are called for to draw attention to the issue from students and staff alike, and to ensure that norms of plagiarism are effectively and explicitly communicated to students.
To achieve this aim, this study utilized a textual judgment task, a paraphrasing practices survey, and semi-structured interviews to collect data from 108 Chinese university English teachers. The teachers' responses to the textual judgment task, including judgments on different rewritten versions of the same given paragraph, ratings of rewritten versions that they identified as guilty of plagiarism, and open-ended justifications provided for their judgments, were analyzed to explore their understandings of intertextuality, attitudes towards recognized transgressive intertextual practices, as well as their criteria for plagiarism and proper paraphrasing. ANOVAs were run to determine whether levels of education, overseas academic training, and teaching experience had an impact on the teachers' knowledge of plagiarism and how knowledge of plagiarism, academic background and teaching experience would relate to their stance on recognized plagiarism. Writing samples in the paraphrasing practices survey were examined for patterns in these teachers' textual appropriation behaviors, such as whether they would borrow strings of consecutive words from the original paragraph provided. Chi-square tests were run on a measure of verbatim copying from the original text to identify possible influences on the teachers' textual borrowing practices. Responses in the interviews were analyzed to reveal their professional experience of plagiarism, including previous plagiarism-related academic training, dealing with student plagiarism, teaching of plagiarism knowledge, as well as knowledge and understanding of institutional policies on plagiarism.
Several major findings emerged from this study. First of all, in general, the teachers' knowledge of plagiarism, stance towards plagiarism, and textual appropriation practices showed that their perceptions of plagiarism were more similar to those of Anglo-American teachers than those reported in previous studies. Arguably, this is partially attributable to these teachers' exposure to English academic writing and the need to deal with student plagiarism. It also suggests the trend that Anglo-American conceptions of plagiarism and intertextual conventions are becoming increasingly accepted in the Chinese academic community.
Second, the statistical analyses revealed different contributing factors to the teachers' knowledge of plagiarism, stance towards recognized plagiarism, and paraphrasing practices. Inconsistent with findings of previous studies, none of the variables examined was found to impact knowledge of plagiarism, suggesting the complexity of the issue. Years of teaching experience was found to be significantly correlated with plagiarism stance, in that the more experience one had, the more lenient s/he would become towards plagiarism. This points to the need to re-educate teachers, update their knowledge of plagiarism and strengthen their awareness of the seriousness of the issue. Whether a respondent had overseas academic experience proved to be a significant predictor of paraphrasing practices, with those who had overseas experience being less likely to appropriate strings of three or more words from the original text, suggesting the positive influence of exposure to the Anglo-American conventions of plagiarism and source use.
Third, Chinese universities in general did not seem to attach as much importance to the issue of plagiarism as Anglo-American universities do. The interviewees reported an absence of an institutional framework on plagiarism and a lack of teacher attention to the issue. To effectively prevent plagiarism, not only should policies and regulations be established, but sufficient support be provided to both teachers and students on teaching about plagiarism and avoiding plagiarism, respectively.
These findings point to the conclusion that although Chinese university English teachers seem to demonstrate a good understanding of plagiarism and acceptable paraphrasing practice, Chinese universities are not serving their role effectively in educating students about (il)legitimate intertextual practices. More institutional and pedagogical efforts are called for to draw attention to the issue from students and staff alike, and to ensure that norms of plagiarism are effectively and explicitly communicated to students.
Date Issued
2014
Call Number
PN167 Sun
Date Submitted
2014