‘I'm entitled to make mistakes and get corrected’: students' self positioning in inquiries into academic conduct

Abstract

Many studies show that students self-report to having bought, downloaded and ghostwritten essays, as well as to failing to attribute quoted material and other similar actions. These actions are all classified as plagiarism, and based on this classification these students are positioned as cheaters. This study shows that there is reason to critically scrutinize such positioning. Using positioning theory, drawing on data from disciplinary inquiries, we show that such actions may be constituted as acts of complaining, justifying, blaming and the like. Students justify these actions using storylines about ambiguous instructions, failing technology and difficulties distinguishing between plagiarism and autonomous authorship. We find that there are four positions such students try to make available for themselves as they attempt to reposition themselves, those of victim, learner, professional and repentant offender. Being suspected of cheating or plagiarism is a malignant position to be in; however, while students may attempt to reposition themselves in less malignant positions, such as that of victim, such attempts generally fail to lead to exoneration.

Keywords:

• cheating
• plagiarism
• positioning
• higher education
• disciplinary hearings

Acknowledgement

The writing of this article was made possible by funding from the Swedish Knowledge Foundation (KK-stiftelsen) through its research program LearnIT, and from the Swedish Research Council, Committee for Educational Science. The article is written as a part of the projects ICT and Learning in Teacher Training, and Cribbed notes: How youth and young adults regard school performance and conventional norms. An early discussion of data from these projects was presented at the 8th World Computer Congress on Education (WCCE), Stellenbosch, South Africa, June 2005.

Notes

1. Note that the formatting here is that used in V's original text. She goes from using normal text to italics and from paragraphs to short statements in what we would suggest is meant to emphasize her position.

2. Merton's chase for the origin of the phrase ‘If I have seen farther, it is because I have been standing on the shoulders of giants’, takes him far back in history to Didacus Stella's aphorism about ‘a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant’. It is an interesting example of the length scientists may go to seek out the origins of thoughts in order to attribute the originator. It is also an enlightening tale about intertextuality and how Merton raises the question of whether he has himself plagiarized the Kindle cool theory or inadvertently appropriated the texts of Hooke. Merton's account clearly illustrates that even somebody who takes great pain in following the rules may break them.