turnitin v rolfe july09

[email protected] Faculty of Health and Life [email protected] Faculty of Health and Life Sciences

Use of Turnitin for formative Use of Turnitin for formative assessment in first year at universityassessment in first year at university

Presentation to: eLearning in Health, University of Warwick

17th July 2009

By:Dr Viv Rolfe BSc PhD


Faculty of Health & Life ScienceFaculty of Health & Life Science• Health sciences

– Biomedical Science– Medical Science – Forensics Science– Pharmacy

• Health professions– Audiology– Nursing & Midwifery– Speech and Language Therapy– Clinical Physiology and Clinical

Technology

• Health studies– Psychology– Social work– Criminology


BackgroundBackground

• Plagiarism is problematic in higher education and increasing (Bull et al, 2001).

• Universities have raised plagiarism detection as a priory over prevention, and have put “the cart before the horse” (McGowan 2005).

• In 2006 DMU made it compulsory to use Turnitin for all LEVEL ONE assignments.


www.turnitin.comwww.turnitin.com – how similar? – how similar?

http://www.turnitin.com/


Aims of our ProjectAims of our Project

• Use Turnitin “formatively” to address the underlying problems that may cause a student to plagiarise:– Weak literacy and writing– Poor understanding of referencing and citation

• Evaluate student / staff perceptions of using Turnitin in this way.


Study PopulationStudy Population

• Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) – Turnitin introduced in a lecture.

• Biomedical Science (BMS) students – Turnitin introduced and used in computer sessions.

• Students submitted a single draft essay to Turnitin and viewed / interpreted their own originality reports.


AnalysisAnalysis

• SALT (n=11, 26% cohort) and BMS (n=52, 68% cohort) students completed a paper questionnaire (open-ended, Likert scale responses).

• Some students and staff invited to interview (transcribed, clustered).


ResultsResults

• BMS n = 76 students, 64 submitted a draft 76 submitted final essay.

• SALT n = 44 students, 44 submitted a draft and final essay.


ResultsResultsSTUDENT OPINION OF TURNITIN

BMS (n=52) SALT (n=11)

Question PositiveResponse

NegativeResponse

PositiveResponse

NegativeResponse

How was your experience of using Turnitin? 52 0 5 6

Was there enough training? 43 9 5 6

Did you look at the originality report? 50 2 3 8

Did it help you improve your work? 39 13 0 11

Did you change your work after seeing the report?

32 20 0 11

Should all written work be submitted to provide formative feedback?

15 37 4 7


Did it help you improve your work?Did it help you improve your work?

“Illustrates your capability to produce a new piece of work”

“Allowed me to edit my work effectively”

“To see whether you have cited work appropriately”.

“Not useful enough – doesn’t tell you how to improve your work”


Should all written work be submitted to provide formative Should all written work be submitted to provide formative feedback?feedback?

“Essays should but practical reports shouldn’t because these are written from personal observation so cannot be copied”.

“If it is a reflective and personal piece of work there should be no reason to submit it”.


Staff PerceptionsStaff Perceptions

“They were rewriting”.

“Comparing it to last year’s essay which iswhat I could compare it with; there was alot less obvious cut and pasting”.


General PerceptionsGeneral PerceptionsSTAFF“I think people maybe don’t view cut and paste as plagiarism”.

“My 12 year old was doing homework over the weekend and he thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to cut and paste”.

STUDENT“….when we did psychology a lot of people were just copying and

pasting about Freud from the Internet and it was acceptable so it was quite a big shock for me coming to this sort of environment where it’s not acceptable to do that”.

“I think people used to do that for A-levels as well for the coursework and buy the coursework and submit it as their own”.


SummarySummary• With adequate training and guidance, students find using

Turnitin a useful feedback experience to improve their literacy and citation/referencing. Some staff agreement.(Recent abstract supports this Whittle & Murdoch-Eaton 2008).

• For some students, clearer guidance on how to interpret the reports and make improvements to work would be beneficial.

• Students enjoyed the experience and claimed it helped them re-write, but what were their motivations? It helped them check their citations, but how? (See Turnitin publicity claim!)

• Strong perception that “copy and paste” is the cultural norm in schools and this isn’t viewed as plagiarism.


ConclusionsConclusions

• Turnitin can be used formatively to help build student literacy, referencing and citation.

• This is probably a combination of Turnitin having a direct impact and also raising awareness.


Further ResearchFurther Research

• What were the actual changes in writing behaviour?

• Understand working culture at school and work with schools to build good practice.


ReferencesReferences• Bull J, Collins C, CoughlinE & Sharp D. (2001) Technical review

of plagiarism detection software report. JISC Report. Available at: http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/documents/resources/Luton_TechnicalReviewofPDS.pdf [Accessed 15th July 2009]

• McGowan, U. (2005) Plagiarism detection and prevention: Are we putting the cart before the horse?, in Higher education in a changing world, Proceedings of the 28th HERDSA Annual Conference, Sydney, 3-6 July 2005: pp 287.

• Whittle SR & Murdoch-Eaton DG. (2008) Learning about plagiarism using Turnitin detection software. Medical Education, 42: pp513-543.

http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/documents/resources/Luton_TechnicalReviewofPDS.pdf