The Role of Cognitive Biases in Identifying and Disciplining Plagiarism
Social Sciences
Psychology
Academic plagiarism is pervasive, but what constitutes plagiarism is often subject to interpretation. Without fully knowing the student’s actions or intentions, a teacher who suspects plagiarism must decide whether to take disciplinary action. The process of detecting plagiarism may leave room for biases to guide decisions. Student gender and ethnicity have been described as risk factors in being reported for academic misconduct or academic sanctions (Crown & Spiller, 1998; Okonofua & Eberhardt, 2015). However, these suggestions have not been consistently supported by empirical research (Miller et al., 2007; Martin, Rao, & Sloan, 2009). In this study, we address this gap in the field to examine whether a student’s perceived gender, ethnicity, and reputation do in fact influence decisions about plagiarism. In cases where it is unclear whether a student plagiarized, will character biases inform people’s decisions? Across two studies, student participants (n = 221) and Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (n = 231) made decisions about plagiarism in hypothetical situations. The findings from this study suggest that in assessing academic misconduct, instructors first rely on the perceived textual similarity of the assignment. Decisions about sanctions was not significantly predicted by student gender, race, or reputation. This project suggests that a student's gender, race, or reputation alone were not enough to categorically change a participant's evaluation of an assignment as plagiarized.
