The ‘new plagiarism’, academic dishonesty and the development of critical thinking skills

Abstract

In recent years, not only has there been an explosion in the numbers of webpages posted but institutions of higher education have encouraged students to exploit such resources in order to research assignments. The true nature of the extent and severity of plagiarism or poor academic practice is hard to discern with accuracy but some studies find that almost two thirds of students admit plagiarism. The reasons for this phenomenon could be said to lie in the increasing massification of higher education in which one third of the relevant age-cohort now enter higher education, a proportion which the government intends to raise to 50% within the foreseeable future. It is imperative that professional educators recognise that poor academic practice is an issue to which explicit attention needs to be paid and that policies should devote as much time to the inculcation of good academic practice as well as penalties for those students who knowingly and deliberately transgress academic standards

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