Facilitating undergraduates’ plagiarism-free academic writing practices in a blended learning scenario

ABSTRACT

In order to address the rising concerns about undergraduates’ plagiarism in academic writing practices, a blended learning scenario (a combination of face-to-face learning with online learning) was designed and the effectiveness of it was tested. Results indicated that the students became more capable of distinguishing plagiarism cases in different scenarios, and their writing performance significantly improved by engaging in the blended learning scenario, i.e. the extent of plagiarism substantially decreased and writing quality greatly increased. Furthermore, the students mostly provided positive feedback towards the learning intervention. This study contributes to existing literature on instructional solutions to plagiarism issues by focusing on how students’ understandings of plagiarism and source use can be achieved during their writing in a blended learning scenario.

KEYWORDS:

• Plagiarism
• academic writing
• blended learning scenario
• academic writing & plagiarism analysis system

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Shandong Social Science Planning Research 2020 Project [Project No. 20CJYJ15], Qingdao Educational Science Thirteenth Five-Year Plan 2020 Project [Project No. QJK135C1226], and Research Project of Science Education Committee of China Association of Higher Education [Project No. 20ZSLKJYZD03].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical issues

As this study involved human participants, the researchers obtained an ethical approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee of The University of Hong Kong before data collection (HREC Reference Number: EA1705018).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science Education Committee of China Association of Higher Education [20ZSLKJYZD03]; Shandong Social Science Planning Research 2020 Project [20CJYJ15]; Qingdao Educational Science Thirteenth Five-Year Plan 2020 Project [QJK135C1226].

Notes on contributors

Yin Zhang

Dr. Yin Zhang is currently an associate professor in the Department of Education, Ocean University of China. Her research interests lie in the areas of plagiarism-free academic writing, and social media in higher education.

Samuel Kai Wah Chu

Dr. Samuel Kai Wah Chu is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. His research areas include plagiarism-free collaborative inquiry project-based learning, 21st century skills, social media in education, and digital literacies.

Xuyan Qiu

Dr. Xuyan Qiu is an assistant professor in Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research areas include second language teaching and learning, English for academic purposes, and English-medium instruction.

Zamzami Zainuddin

Dr. Zamzami Zainuddin got his PhD from the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on pedagogical-enhanced technological innovation.

Xiuhan Li

Dr. Xiuhan Li is a lecturer in Hubei Research Center for Educational Informationization, Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Central China Normal University. Her research focuses on gamification pedagogy and teacher education.