Dr. Esther Erlings is a lecturer in law at Flinders University, Australia. She holds degrees from Utrecht University (LLB), Maastricht University (LLM), and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (PhD), where she stayed on for another year as a teaching assistant. Since 2017, she has been teaching her Australian students a range of topics, including torts, health law, family law, and research topics. Esther’s own research is broad, but focuses primarily on family law (especially parent-child dispute resolution), health law (with a particular interest in restrictive practices), and law & religion (she is an editor for the Journal of Law, Religion and State, and published her monograph Religious Rights within the Family; From Coerced Manifestation to Dispute Resolution in England, France and Hong Kong with Routledge). Esther has a keen interest in all things human, including the human side of teaching.
Never Let the Cheating Go to Waste: Providing Pastoral Care to Plagiarisers
Abstract:
Historically, processes for academic integrity have focused on catching the cheating student and punishing them for their misbehaviour. There is now a growing body of literature that recognises that the cunning dodger is not the only student who passes off others’ work as their own, and that a large number of students plagiarise because they lack confidence. Far less attention is paid to a third (and from experience sizable) group of students disregarding the rules of academic integrity; those who have experienced adverse life events that have interfered with their ability to study and produce work on time. These students are normally eligible for accommodation, but some only see a pressing deadline and end up plagiarising. For such students in particular, an academic integrity procedure can be an opportunity for pastoral care, in addition to an occasion for being held accountable.
This presentation will commence by explaining the academic integrity procedure at Flinders University, which may be especially suited to the provision of pastoral care. It then turns to the reasons why students plagiarise, as identified in the literature and from experience. The focus is then placed on trauma, both as a reason prompting plagiarism and the fight/flight responses that may be expected from students. The presentation subsequently discusses the pastoral care that could be offered to students, and the difference that can be made by looking beyond the immediate transgression.