Effectiveness of plagiarism instruction on undergraduates’ learning outcomes in higher education: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Introduction: In response to increasing plagiarism in higher education, exploring educational solutions to it has drawn intensive attentions from researchers. Concerning instructional approaches of preventing plagiarism, while previous research has provided insights into teaching of plagiarism, there is a lack of research on systematic review of previous empirical research on plagiarism instruction with the aim of providing a more precise quantitative estimate of the effectiveness of plagiarism instruction on undergraduates’ learning outcomes in higher education. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine effectiveness of plagiarism instruction on undergraduates’ learning outcomes in higher education. There are two sub-objectives. The first sub-objective is to investigate the overall effect of plagiarism instruction in higher education settings. The second sub-objective is to identify key instructional design principles in the context of plagiarism instruction on undergraduates’ learning outcomes. In order to achieve the purpose, six research questions are shaped as follows. 1.Which kind of learning outcomes are more suitable for plagiarism instruction? 2.Are the effects of plagiarism instruction on learning outcome measures moderated by the type of learning task? 3.Did forms of plagiarism instruction impact the learning outcome gains? 4.Did the availability of instructors enhance the learning outcome gains? 5.Did students’ collaboration impact the learning outcome gains? 6.Did the methodological rigor moderate the learning outcomes gains? Methodology: Using meta-analysis, previous studies on plagiarism instruction will be synthesized to calculate the overall effectiveness of plagiarism instruction on undergraduates’ learning outcomes in higher education. By following the meta-analytical procedure suggested by Glass, McGaw, and Smith (1981), previous empirical studies on plagiarism instruction will be collected from related literature databases and search engines. After that, some articles will be identified for meta-analysis by reviewing their abstracts. As for reliability of selecting the qualifying studies as well as the coded variables, the researcher and a research assistant will code 20% of data independently, discrepancies between the two coders will be reduced through discussion. If the inter-coder reliability is assured, the remaining 80% data will be coded by one of the raters. Significance: The study will contribute to a better understanding and improvement of instructional approaches to address plagiarism issues in higher education. Moreover, it will promote the discussion on what instructional design principles should be applied with the aim of helping students be free from plagiarism.