A Preliminary Investigation into the Practice of Integrity in Academic Writing: First Year TEfl MA Students in Focus
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Date
2011-05
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Addis Ababa Universiy
Abstract
The main concern of this study was to investigate the practice of academic integrity at Addis
Ababa University. To achieve this, questionnaires were designed and administered to the
2010/11 TEFL graduate entrants and their respective instructors. Interviews were also held
with some voluntary instructors and randomly selected students. Then, the data gathered
via questionnaires and interviews were interpreted and discussed.
In this study, SPSS Software was used to process the data gathered through closed-ended
questions. Accordingly, frequencies and percentages of the responses of informants were
computed, and then quantitatively described and interpreted. In some cases, mean scores
of the data were also performed. On the other hand, data collected through open-ended
items and interview were qualitatively described and narrated. Therefore, both quantitative
and qualitative data analyzing methods were employed in this thesis.
Thus, the findings of the study indicated that the students' English language proficiency
shows gap in measuring up to the instructors' expectations. This is to mean that the abi lity
of the students in writing clearly, precisely, and objectively is found to be a bit lower than
what is expected. With regard to the prevalence of acts of plagiarism in the target students'
academic writings, the study revealed that it is serious though students' understanding of
the concepts of plagiarism and its consequences seems ยท to be good. The shortage of
resource materials at the University to do further reading, time constraint, difficu lty in
expressing ideas clearly in English, lack of awareness of plagiarism and its consequences,
some personal traits and incapability of doing one's own works independently were among
the major reasons for the students' temptations to plagiarise. Moreover, it seems that there
is a gap in the policy to tackle the acts of academic dishonesty at the University.
Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that to overcome the problems of
the acts of academic dishonesty, students should practice the target language persistently.
Besides, students should acknowledge all sorts of sources they might refer to or else the
University should penalize those who fail to do so. In connection with this notion, it was also
suggested that the University should conduct continuous awareness rising trainings and
workshops on the concepts of plagiarism and its consequences vigorously and teach the
value of academic integrity so that the students would develop concerns for it. Yet again,
frequent and timely feedbacks on the students' academic writings are called on as that
would greatly contribute towards the promotion of academic integrity. Furthermore, it is
recommended that the University should reassess it educational policy particularly its
honour code. Finally, it is believed that the preliminary investigation conducted in this study
might not be adequate and comprehensive. Therefore, further in -depth study should be
conducted on how to detect plagiarism and hence promote academic integrity at the
University.
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Keywords
academic dishonesty, academic integrity, academic writing and pla giarism.