Study: Students struggle to identify problematic grey-zones in academic practice

When navigating questions on citation, collaboration, and data collection, students across higher education struggle to identify the grey zones in academic practice.  

In a comprehensive study surveying over 3,000 European students from upper secondary to PhD level, researchers found that while students at higher levels tend to be better at spotting clear-cut violations of academic norms, their ability to identify grey-zone practices did not increase along their educational trajectory. 

In some cases, the opposite was even true: Presented with two examples of grey-zone practices, 17% and 20% of the upper secondary level participants were able to identify  them as such, whereas only 12% of the Bachelor and 14% of the PhD level participants were able to do the same.  

“It is worrying that grey-zone practices seem to sit in a blind spot in students’ understanding of academic integrity in higher education,” said lead author Mikkel Willum Johansen, associate professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen. 

“These are the situations that can inadvertently lead to academic malpractice, and it is clear that the students are not adequately trained to spot them,” said the researcher.   

Participants were also asked whether they had received formal training in academic integrity, and the researchers found that training had no notable effect on their ability to identify grey-zone practices. 

Need for revision of academic integrity training 

Participants in the study were further asked if they had violated academic norms in different ways. The researcher found that participants seemed to develop a better grasp on plagiarism at the more advanced study levels, but that their collaboration and data handling skills remained lacking. 

For example, 45% of the bachelor level participants admitted adding students as co-authors of group assignments even though they had not contributed, while 14% of the PhD level participants admitted having deleted deviating data “based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate” and 20% admitted to keeping inaccurate records.  

Once again, the researchers found that training made no difference to the prevalence of these types of questionable data practices.    

The results have clear implications for how to train academic integrity, said Mikkel Willum Johansen. 

These are the situations that can inadvertently lead to academic malpractice, and it is clear that the students are not adequately trained to spot them

“Plagiarism is widespread at the upper secondary level, but almost eradicated at PhD level. This seems to indicate that efforts in this area are paying off,” the researcher noted.  

“But we clearly need to put more emphasis on grey-zone practices – not just the clear-cut cases of violations. We should further recognize that academic integrity cannot be reduced to questions concerning plagiarism. We also need to pay attention to collaboration and data practices. These results call for a revision of academic integrity training at all educational levels.”