The Student Authorship project was an initiative to develop and evaluate teaching on ‘authorship’ in psychology. It was funded through the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network under the Departmental teaching Enhancement Scheme, and the project took place in the psychology departments of Thames Valley, London Metropolitan, and Middlesex Universities.

To read about the project you can either download the PDF of the full project report, or read just some of the main sections below which include downloadable resources.

• Introduction
• Teaching materials (downloadable presentation and notes available)
• Student authorship questionnaire (downloadable questionnaire available)
• Journal articles on project
• Project team and contact details

Introduction

The project aimed to address the growing problem of unintentional plagiarism, which occurs when students rely so heavily on their sources – websites, text books or journal articles – that they put themselves at risk of being accused of plagiarism, because such large portions of their written work consist of unoriginal material pasted from the web or copied from other sources.

Most of the instructional approaches to the problem of plagiarism have consisted of informing students about what plagiarism is and then directing them not to engage in it. This emphasis on not doing things means that the messages to students are mainly negative ones about prohibitions, sanctions and so on, with little in the way of positive messages about what to do in an active way to avoid being accused or suspected of plagiarism.

The concept of authorship provides a more positive approach. Authorship is the opposite of plagiarism, so if students understand what an author is, and know what they need to do to be genuinely the author of their written assignments, they should be able to avoid unintentional plagiarism. The project therefore aims to improve students’ knowledge about authorship, and improve their sense of themselves as an author (their authorial identity).

The project developed materials for talks and workshops for students that were evaluated with a before and after questionnaire. The materials are available on this website and can be downloaded for use in other settings. The project focused on psychology students, but all the materials could be applied or adapted for other subjects, and we would be interested to hear from anyone considering using them in other disciplines. The only conditions attached to their use are that potential users inform us that they intend to use the materials, that they are used only for educational purposes, and that the project is acknowledged (see teaching materials). We hope you will find these resources useful.  

Teaching materials

The materials available here consist of a PowerPoint presentation together with some notes for presenters (a ‘script’ for a talk) about authorship. This is intended to be a light-hearted (in places humorous) introduction to the concept of authorship, followed by an exploration of how this applies to different types of written work. To give the talk, the script need not be followed exactly; in fact it is important that the delivery be tailored as far as possible to the context in which it is being used. The talk ends with points about different types of written assignment, which can be edited to focus on the most relevant type of assignment. It is intended to be a 30-40 minute talk in a one-hour session, so there is time for discussion and interaction in places.

The materials can also be used for more interactive workshops and seminars. To use them in this way, focus on a smaller part of the materials (for example the brief extracts of writing about eating disorders) and provide these handouts for discussion in pairs or small groups. Alternatively, the materials can be combined with other materials, such as specimen essays.

It looks at cases where professional academics have got into serious trouble over plagiarism (for example the well known media psychiatrist Raj Persaud), and examples from outside academic life where there were accusations of plagiarism (such as popular novelists and the government’s ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction).

The materials were used in the project with psychology students, but could be adapted for other subjects, and we would be interested to hear from anyone considering using them for use in other disciplines.

Authorship presentation:  PDF file    PPT file

Notes for presenters:   PDF file     Word doc
 

Student Authorship Questionnaire

The Student Authorship Questionnaire (SAQ) was used to evaluate teaching sessions on authorship and is downloadable below. This is an 18-item questionnaire designed to measure beliefs and attitudes to authorship and writing and to provide a measure of student understandings of the positive qualities of authorship as opposed to their knowledge of the meaning of plagiarism (Pittam et al, 2009). The SAQ gives scores on six scales:

1. Confidence in writing: five items (e.g. ‘I enjoy writing in my own words’) measuring the extent to which students know what it means to express an idea in their own words, enjoy doing so, and are confident about their writing.
2. Understanding authorship: two items (e.g. ‘I know what the responsibilities of an author are’) measuring the extent to which students understand what it means to be the author of a piece of written work.
3. Knowledge to avoid plagiarism: three items (e.g. ‘I know how to show which parts of my assignment were not written by me’) measuring the extent to which students know how to provide citations and references and are confident they will not be accused of plagiarism.
4. Top-down approaches to writing: two items (e.g. ‘When writing an assignment I begin by thinking about what I want to say, and then look for evidence relating to that’) measuring the extent to which students believe that writing is about making an argument based on their own thoughts.
5. Bottom-up approaches to writing: two items (e.g. ‘When writing an assignment I begin by looking for material I can include and then think about how I can put it together’) measuring the extent to which students approach writing by first looking for material and then thinking about how to arrange it.
6. Pragmatic approaches to writing: four items (e.g. ‘I get better marks when I use more material taken directly from books, journals or the internet in my assignments’) measuring the extent to which students use more secondary materials to improve their grades or save time.

In the evaluation conducted as part of the project, the SAQ was used immediately before the teaching, and then afterwards to assess short-term changes.

Student Authorship Questionnaire (SAQ):   PDF doc        Word doc

Journal articles on project

Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P. and Payne, N. (2010) 'Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity', Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35: 2, 157 — 171, First published on: 19 May 2009 (iFirst)

Pittam, G., Elander, J., Lusher, J., Fox, P. and Payne, N. (2009) 'Student beliefs and attitudes
about authorial identity in academic writing', Studies in Higher Education, 34:2,153 — 170
 

Project team and contact details

James Elander, Derby University, j.elander@derby.ac.uk
Gail Pittam, Anglia Ruskin University, gail.pittam@anglia.ac.uk
Pauline Fox, Thames Valley University, Pauline.fox@tvu.ac.uk
Jo Lusher, London Metropolitan University, j.lusher@londonmet.ac.uk
Kathy Harrington, London Metropolitan University, k.harrington@londonmet.ac.uk
Nicky Payne, Middlesex University, n.payne@mdx.ac.uk