Blog 5: Inclusive academic integrity

Recently, there has been a greatly increased focus on inclusive policies as an essential part of EDI in universities, in particular on inclusive teaching and learning (Thomas and May, 2010). However, so far, the inclusive agenda has not been applied specifically to university practices connected with academic integrity. Nevertheless, I would argue that there are so many inclusive issues in academic integrity that need to be addressed, for example: over-representation of students from certain ethnic groups in academic conduct investigations (Pecorari, 2016); staff perspectives that plagiarism is an international students’ problem (Mott-Smith, Tomaš and Kostka, 2017); availability of academic literacy instruction to certain groups of students but not others (Wingate, 2015).

Research into inclusive practice

I conducted some research into inclusive practice in academic integrity by interviewing key stakeholders: students who had been through academic conduct investigations and staff with roles in academic integrity teaching, support and investigations. Student accounts of the process highlighted their anxiety (‘I worried a lot that this is going to be the end of my career. I go to bed worried what is going to happen’), their increased self-doubts (‘I should know but I don’t and can’t ask, I’m in trouble now, I’m so scared I will fail’), and their sense that the process was too much to cope with (‘it was giving me a lot of stress and making me lack concentration. I found the documents very overwhelming, a lot of information, not clear, when you have been out of education for a while, trying to take in the dos and don’ts’).

Staff in support roles also drew attention to the impact on inclusion (‘if you get an academic conduct referral in your first few months at university, you are immediately going to feel like an outsider’) and lack of belonging resulting in a vicious circle (‘you might not feel you deserve to be there, you’re less likely to ask for help, more likely to mess up and then also not ask for help’). Lack of belonging was also highlighted by library staff who stated that some students were uncomfortable (‘students who are dyslexic can be very scared to come into the library.. a widening participation student struggling with her work said ‘I don’t belong here’’). The Student Union advice team pointed out that it is the more marginalised students who ‘are most susceptible because they are the least familiar with these concepts’ and that the university needed to do more to ‘distinguish between students cheating and not fully understanding’. Teaching staff gave the view that students did not learn in the academic conduct process and the investigation team agreed that ‘Offering education instead of referral would be more inclusive, especially for students with mental health issues and disabilities’. Thus, staff noted problems with the lack of inclusion for many disadvantaged groups.

What next?

I concluded from this study that while there is a great deal of awareness of inclusive practice, academic integrity is not yet ‘accessible, relevant and engaging to all students’ (Thomas and May, 2010, p.50). As a result of the insights gained from this research, I brought about a change to the academic conduct procedure to introduce educational training for students with first minor breaches in their first year of study. I will be monitoring the impact of this over the coming year to check whether it has helped to make academic integrity more inclusive.

See more information on my video workshop, details below.

References

Davis, M. (2021). Inclusive academic integrity. Video workshop. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0CNrmsQe8M

Mott-Smith, J., Tomaš, Z. and Kostka, I. (2017). Teaching effective source use. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Pecorari, D. (2016). Plagiarism, international students and the second-language writer. In T. Bretag (Ed.) Handbook of Academic Integrity, pp.537-550. Singapore: Springer.

Thomas, L. and May, H. (2010). Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education. HE Academy. Available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/inclusion/InclusiveLearningandTeaching_FinalReport.pdf

Wingate, U. (2015). Academic literacy and student diversity: the case for inclusive practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters