Preventing academic misconduct in Chinese students

As a lecturer for the past 10 years, I always think I've seen it all until assignment hand-in day arrives and another example of cheating, collusion or plagiarism hits the desk. More often than not, international students are the culprits and are surprised that we can spot suspect work from a mile off even before we've checked the score on our plagiarism software. If I see a draft that is suspect, I will remind students of UK policies on these issues to encourage them to mend their ways if they have done something they shouldn't have and it's that approach that has made me realise that in most cases, the students have no idea they are at fault.

It's with this in mind that I turned to a new book published in 2014 by Sage called Study Skills for Chinese Students by Mike Courtney and Xiangping Du. This is aimed at Chinese students studying in the UK and is a multilingual guide to developing independent learning skills and improving their chances of success in UK universities. It talks about how Chinese students often think that using large parts of an author's work without referencing is a compliment to the author, and that it's okay to get help from a friend with writing an assignment - something I see often. This is such a useful book for Chinese students to read to help them understand the cultural differences in the UK, but also for lecturers to understand their perspective and consider how to communicate guidance on cheating, collusion and plagiarism in a more meaningful way. It's definitely one I recommend.

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