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‘Plagiarism not cheating’
Many students from non-English-speaking
backgrounds okay with copying, study shows.
T
hough all cultures perceive contract cheating as wrong,
nearly half of ESL students see plagiarism as less
problematic. They think universities make “too much of
a fuss of people cheating” in this manner. A fifth of them also
believe “it’s okay to cheat a little in assignments”. Only 7 per cent of
students from English-speaking backgrounds agreed.
This was illuminated in a recent survey of 1077 university students
in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
The fees game
Strong correlation between international
student fees and university rankings.
W
ould you pay to study law at the University of
Melbourne if it cost only a third more at Harvard?
In Australia, this financial gap is set to decrease, if trends
continue. Study Move has identified that international student fees
at Australian universities have risen in tandem with institutions’
improvement in QS rankings.
“It is not a surprise that there is a relationship, but it is surprising
how strong the correlation is,” authors from the education
consultancy wrote in their report.
On average, the cost of undergraduate and postgraduate
degrees rose by 6.2 per cent between 2017 and 2018 across
all study fields. Now, the average undergraduate degree costs
2
campusreview.com.au
The survey also found that 25 per cent of males,
compared to 15 per cent of females, weren’t worried about
others plagiarising.
Students in the UK were more likely to perceive plagiarism
flippantly than those in Australia and New Zealand.
Commenting on the survey, Associate Professor Tracey
Bretag, director of the UniSA Business School Office for
Academic Integrity, said its results are supported by “decades”
of previous research.
She claimed that many ESL students plagiarise because it’s
harder for them to avoid it.
”[Many are] struggling with manipulating the language.
“If you don’t have a really good command of the language …
instead of repeating three or four words from a text, you might use
eight, nine or 10 words.”
The survey was funded by online study support service
Studiosity and conducted by Professor Marcia Devlin, deputy
vice-chancellor (Victoria University) and Dr Jade McKay (The Right
Consulting Group).
Studiosity CEO Michael Larsen said its results indicate the need
for universities to better inform students of anti-plagiarism protocol.
“No doubt many international students arrive in Australia with
very different understandings of what ‘academic integrity and
honesty’ mean,” he said. ■
$30,840, while a standard postgraduate qualification is $31,596.
Yet these fees can dip as low as $20,000 or soar higher than
$40,000. A law degree at the University of Melbourne, for example,
which, depending on the rankings agency, is superior to that of
Harvard, is priced at $42,656.
In the 2019 edition of the QS rankings, there were 25 Australian
institutions in the top 100. In the previous year, only eight made this list.
Australian universities’ positions in other rankings, like that of
Times Higher Education, reaffirm the fee hike-rankings pattern.
The authors posit that to international students, the rankings justify
the fee hikes. The evidence seems to support this: international
student numbers are ever-growing. Yet they note that similar countries
like New Zealand haven’t followed this pattern (the University of
Auckland aside), and suggest that it could produce inequity.
Others, like Taiwan-based former neuroscientist Dr Peter
Osborne, have echoed this sentiment. “My concern is that we don’t
treat these students as equals,” he said in a 2015 interview for ABC
radio program Ockham’s Razor.
“In this global economy, all students need to be respected as
people making an effort to better themselves towards an uncertain
future. Our national anthem says Advance Australia Fair, though I’m
left to wonder whether ‘fare’ might be a more apt spelling.”
Study Move also explored whether other factors are enticing
students to Australia. By reference to QS research, they attributed
some of Australia’s popularity to the UK and the US becoming less
appealing, following Brexit and the Trump presidency.
Multifactorial global rankings began in 2003, with the Academic
Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Since then, competing
agencies have been established, which, in addition to contributing
to international student fee increases, have themselves profited
from the rankings race. ■