Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to use plagiarism detection services to assess the effect of an APA training lesson on the quality of SafeAssign and Turnitin originality scores of student research papers. Although these two services have been around more than a decade, there is minimal published research using them to measure the quality of training that students receive on preventing plagiarism, nor is there much published research comparing the two services. For this study there are two groups of students involved, trained and not-trained groups. The trained group of students come from a specific class in which they participate in an APA training lesson for proper in-text citations, formatting and reference lists, and also take a research and writing exam. The not-trained group of students are from a class that does not use the same formal training methods on avoiding plagiarism. The results of this study show that there is no significant difference between the originality scores of the trained and not-trained groups. Furthermore, there was no relationship found between the research and writing exam, taken by the trained group, and those students eventual originality scores. There is however, a significant difference between the reported SafeAssign and Turnitin originality scores. Recommendations for improvement include a look at the current training, and the types of questions that students frequently answer incorrectly, with a goal to re-focus future training in order to clarify topics that students have trouble with. Future research may include a closer look at the SafeAssign and Turnitin categories, used for passages returned as matching, which may then be used to improve training on how to avoid plagiarism.

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