Assessment for Learning: How Plagiarism can be used as an Efficient Learning Tool

Abstract. There is no doubt that plagiarism is a major source of concern among Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Academic honesty and integrity practices need to be carefully cultivated to ensure that students understand the seriousness and implications of failing to properly acknowledge the information and resources that they use in their college assignments. This paper explores the importance of complying with ethical standards through a review of the literature in the field, from which a case study was developed using observation techniques to gather the data. A research sample of seventy students registered in their final year of study was considered acceptable to support the analysis. Face-to-face feedback sessions were arranged with students after their work had been reviewed and assessed. The feedback sessions were scheduled individually where there was evidence of poor referencing and writing standards that led to cases of plagiarism, which were then discussed with student concerned. The main researc