TY - GEN
T1 - Academic integrity perceptions regarding computing assessments and essays
AU - Simon,
AU - Cook, Beth
AU - Sheard, Judy
AU - Carbone, Angela
AU - Johnson, Chris
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Student perceptions of academic integrity have been extensively researched in relation to text-based assessments, but there is rather less research relating to non-text-based assessments such as computer programs, databases, and spreadsheets. This paper reports the findings from a survey of computing students and academics to investigate perceptions of particular academic practices with regard to both essays and computing assessments. For each practice the research sought to discover whether it was perceived to constitute plagiarism or collusion and whether it was considered to be acceptable in an academic environment. While there was general agreement between academics and students regarding some practices, both groups displayed high levels of uncertainty about other practices. There was considerable variation between their attitudes to similar practices in the text and non-text environments, and between what was seen as plagiarism/collusion and perceptions of unacceptability. That is, there were practices that were perceived to be plagiarism or collusion but were considered acceptable, and others that were considered not to be plagiarism or collusion but were nevertheless thought unacceptable. These findings suggest a need for academic integrity policies and procedures specific to computing, accompanied by discipline-specific student education.
AB - Student perceptions of academic integrity have been extensively researched in relation to text-based assessments, but there is rather less research relating to non-text-based assessments such as computer programs, databases, and spreadsheets. This paper reports the findings from a survey of computing students and academics to investigate perceptions of particular academic practices with regard to both essays and computing assessments. For each practice the research sought to discover whether it was perceived to constitute plagiarism or collusion and whether it was considered to be acceptable in an academic environment. While there was general agreement between academics and students regarding some practices, both groups displayed high levels of uncertainty about other practices. There was considerable variation between their attitudes to similar practices in the text and non-text environments, and between what was seen as plagiarism/collusion and perceptions of unacceptability. That is, there were practices that were perceived to be plagiarism or collusion but were considered acceptable, and others that were considered not to be plagiarism or collusion but were nevertheless thought unacceptable. These findings suggest a need for academic integrity policies and procedures specific to computing, accompanied by discipline-specific student education.
KW - Academic integrity
KW - Computing education
KW - Non-text-based assessment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84905829265&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2632320.2632342
DO - 10.1145/2632320.2632342
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 9781450327558
T3 - ICER 2014 - Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research
SP - 107
EP - 114
BT - ICER 2014 - Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 10th Annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research, ICER 2014
Y2 - 11 August 2014 through 13 August 2014
ER -