Introduction
Academic integrity involves the commitment to fairness, trust, honesty, responsibility, courage, and respect as basic values. Ethical academic behavior emanates from these values creating a practice dedicated to exchanging ideas and learning. Clinical social work instructors have a critical part to play in the ethical development of students. Programs of clinical social work have plagiarism guidelines that address academic dishonesty. In addition, professionals in this occupation have a code of ethics governing them, clarifying obligations that address unethical behavior and ensuring academic integrity is adhered to. Guaranteeing these codes are complied with also necessitates the involvement of academic administrators. This paper discusses the value that academic performance with integrity has concerning the ethics of Clinical Social Work Practice.
Conventionally, universities have operated as face-to-face settings involving faculty members and students meeting at a pre-arranged time in a classroom, in set intervals typically two to three days weekly. These classes majorly entail lecturers in which students receive information that instructors present. While such classes are still rampant in many clinical social work colleges and universities, the current attention has stimulated sprightlier student involvement in learning. Reliant on the instructor’s style, typically, face-to-face lectures tend to be more interesting, particularly when the lectures embrace all students participating in the discussions and activities involved. Face-to-face lectures also kindle thinking among students, ensuring more enjoyable learning.
Multiple academic articles have sought to emphasize the determinants and factors of quality in higher education. They have unanimously concluded that university students’ rank for scholarships, extra accomplishments, age, the level of education of the parent, and the educational institution they are being educated play a crucial part. Particularly in the perception of the quality of education in clinical social work faculties (Gomathi, et al., 2022). Moreover, the quality of education in universities varies depending on the institution.
This fluctuation depends on the location size, courses taught, services available, finances, and managerial capability. Only a few universities focus on providing quality education, while others fail to focus on quality. Instead, such rely on deprived infrastructure and poor faculty members, with low satisfaction on the part of the student as they are even unsure of their employability future. It has also been found that the learning style and feedback of the instructors are substantial predictors of high-quality learning in clinical social work faculties. Student satisfaction also plays a crucial role in predicting learning outcomes.
Essentially, higher education focuses on factors around the education’s recipients, such as infrastructure, feedback, and instructor style. However, student behavior has not received much attention to determine if their ethical behavior has a relationship, especially among online universities and clinical social workers. Though academic dishonesty is an issue that concerns all scholars, among clinical social workers students, there is a more important responsibility in ensuring that students embrace integrity. This is because clinical social work is not just an academic quest, it is a profession that is also guided ethically.
Therefore, in addition to academic duties and rules that guide the clinical social work faculty. There is also an obligation on such professions to instill in students a unique commitment and understanding of the profession’s ethical principles instituted in limitations and uphold an obligation to the larger society. To ensure this role is fulfilled, clinical social work educators ought to ensure that they convey to students a clear understanding of the code and its role in guiding clinical social work actions and plans. Before looking at this code of ethics, it is essential to have an overview of literature touching on the academic integrity of students in university, particularly in the clinical social work faculty, and how the misconducts transpire.
The Value of Academic Performance with Integrity Among Clinical Social Work Students
University faculties require that clinical social work students embrace academic integrity and honesty as core values of teaching, learning, and all academic activities. However, academic literature documents multiple reports indicating cheating and plagiarizing to be on the increase among these students (Cathal et al., 2022). The readily available technologies have been a significant contributor to these behaviors ranging from sharing online quizzes, texting classmates with answers, and copy-pasting material from the internet.
All educational environments and universities require that academic honesty be prioritized. In particular, academic honesty becomes of principal concern when courses such as clinical social work are offered online. This is because online teaching often comes with less direct monitoring by instructors, and students tend to work more independently. Various studies have indicated that instructors and students alike believe academic cheating and dishonesty are more prevalent online, reflecting student principles and morals.
In addition, cultural diversities not evident in the system tend to hearten academic dishonesty. For instance, clinical social work students from a non-western culture, when anticipated to be privy and function based on western behavior, tend to be at a disadvantage (Gomathi et al., 2022). A study by Gomathi et al., (2022) revealed that collectivist clinical social work students tend to be more accepting than individualistic clinical social work students who stiffen regarding dubious academic behaviors. Worse is that academic dishonesty often leads to future workplace immoral behavior. It has been established that there is a link between students’ academic dishonesty with unethical conduct in the workplace in the future (Gomathi et al., 2022). Most vulnerable are international clinical social work students.
Projects, Presentations, and Alignments
Misconduct among students is often due to various reasons, including course overload, that may result in incredible pressure among the students. It has been established that academic honesty perception, including the gravity of plagiarism, may differ among faculty members. Jennie et al., 2022, sought to investigate faculty’s and university students’ insight into plagiarism, copyright abuses, and unauthorized collaborative works. Faculty members from the Clinical social work departments in the study recommended educating students on integrity matters, implementing tougher penalties, and assigning more proctors in the course of examination to reduce violations of academic integrity. Students and faculty members believed that using more proctors and educating students on academic integrity ought to be accompanied by offering easier examinations and assignments with lenient deadlines.
A majority of universities give software, for example, Turnitin, for detecting plagiarism in course assignments. Thus, academic dishonesty could be mainly due to the design of the course. The majority of studies have been conducted to determine how to improve e-learning academic honesty. In one such study, Cathal et al., 2022 sought to test a technique that involves the alignment of the identity of students with the submitted work by assignment patterns. This used analytics permitting the automation of identity, enabling the assurance of authorship and only resorting to the lecturer in instances where it is essential to have human interference. This has the effect of producing better honesty, integrity, and convenience in the process of evaluating the submitted work of a student.
Online Exams
While clinical social work practice has its code of ethics, the primary responsibility for upholding academic integrity is placed on the academic institution by having a culture that does not tolerate educational fraudulence (Darlene, 2022). Management should support instructors in imposing harsh consequences for students violating the code. Lectures should also stress workplace ethical values: nonetheless, it is factual that students who want to cheat will find out how to go about it as cheating though it can be reduced, cannot be eliminated. Bearman et al. (2020) state that academic integrity emphasizes preparing students with competencies and moral fundamentals to engage in ethical scholarship. Conversely, the security of exams focuses on hardening them to counter attempts and efforts of cheating to detect any attempt.
Research has continued to show that the prevailing philosophy on scholarly honesty among clinical social workers is influenced by policy actions, including syllabi or course outlines, focusing on ethical rules, integrity, or conduct. Additionally, a student’s truthfulness in school is impacted by academics’ capability to teach and enhance the student’s acceptance and knowledge of standards of the institution’s integrity. According to scholars Gomathi et al., (2022) a key question is whether it will be possible to know who did the online assessment at home: whether the real student or somebody else. To comply with the higher education act, universities must ensure they have solutions that help end-user verification. These systems should help authenticate the learner’s legitimacy, presence, and identity.
Technology is drastically improving, and this will help clinical social work practice as universities will implement cost-effective solutions, including sophisticated hardware and software, to enhance honesty in school. This solution should entail implementation and deterrence approaches to ensure academic morality is addressed sufficiently. Still, in assessing ethics among higher learning institutions concerning clinical social work, certain studies have been done to compare the performance of students when they are being watched to when they are not. One study by Darlene, 2022 determined that proctored exams recorded poor performance among students compared to non-proctored exams. This performance difference can result from the general nervousness of students in relation to sitting for the exam. Of most importance is the fact that the study found out that poor performance can also be because students were unable to recourse to their internet sources, textbook, and student. Which, in a non-proctored examination, they possibly may resort to, even with the express direction that prohibits them from doing so.
There exist other innovative ways of using technology to secure Clinical social work online exams. For instance, a new technology referred to as continuous authentication can suitably tackle various security issues. Face recognition systems can be used by recording the faculty student’s facial identities in real-time and triggering alerts that alarm exam invigilators in case of cheating. Such systems can also be utilized to notice the various forms of identity sharing that the clinical social work code of ethics prohibit.
Online Lectures
Online learning offers benefits and shortcomings: various studies have affirmed this. (Kuznekoff, 2020) asserts that some of its benefits include flexibility, giving value to working adults balancing family, study requirements, and work. Nonetheless, there are multiple shortcomings to synchronous online e-learning, including class disruption, as the class stays open to students who may sign on or off at any time of the day, even as the sessions are ongoing. The text-based and fast-paced environments may irritate students with learning restrictions or disabilities.
Additionally, when instructors rely highly on true-false and multiple-choice questions in examinations, this may be inadequate in assessing the student’s understanding and knowledge depth, and ability to offer detailed answers to long essay questions. The synchronous participation in education necessitates that students possess a dynamic collaboration and involvement, while there may be students that may not be social (Kuznekoff, 2020). Thus, certain students may find it challenging to join live online discussions in a synchronous learning environment.
Online lectures may require lectures to record live lectures and make them available for retrieval by scholars anytime. Scholar, (Kuznekoff, 2020) resolved that online lecture videos available to pupils impact their learning. Nonetheless, with increased watching of the videos by the students, there is decreased learning among them. The study also found that less than half of the scholars in the clinical social work class viewed the entire lecture video. Furthermore, the average viewer watched not more than 60% of the recorded video utilized in the online courses (Kuznekoff, 2020). It was concluded that synchronous virtual e-learning is a tool that is beneficial for tutoring. Nonetheless, any new teaching tool requires adaptability to newer teaching methods. Thus, more exploration is desired to evaluate the quality of learning to ensure the reduction of plagiarism and boost academic integrity. This will improve the benefits of new tools and help uphold ethics even among professionals.
Academic Performance Contrasted with The Actual Academic Learning
It is a concern in the practice of clinical social work as well as a paradox that is charming in education. That it is possible for students to be enthusiastically successful in class responsibilities and tasks but learn nothing virtually, conversely, it is conceivable for scholars to perform poorly in identical tasks but absorb and learn a lot. Such circumstances and situations reveal one of the most extensive diversities in human learning and memory literature: the disparity between learning and performance. According to Jennie et al., (2022), performance is the temporary knowledge and behavioral fluctuations that can be measured or observed just after instructions. Conversely, learning is the somewhat permanent development and changes in knowledge or behavior. Education, especially in a field that is highly regulated by a code of ethics, such as clinical social work, should have learning as its goal.
Overall, learning is considered a process that transpires over the long run, while performance is short-termed. Nonetheless, this denotes that it will be impossible for instructors to differentiate whether their scholars have learned or acquired anything (Jennie et al., (2022). Until when, the students fail to use or think of the information. The Covid-19 Pandemic unexpectedly occasioned most instructors and universities to find themselves obligated to resort to virtual learning technology. Gradually, this alteration has raised various issues, from coverage of pupil queries and questions about internet connectivity and how universities and instructors handle their learners’ grades. To the way, universities handle how trainees evaluate instructors is all of concern to the practice of clinical social work.
Most important is the impact that this emergency immersion to online learning by a majority of universities has on scholars and faculty in learning that is technology enabled. These questions were answered in a subsequent study by Gomathi et al., (2022) demonstrating that factual academic honesty and learning are entirely attained through physical face-to-face cult learning classrooms. Thus, for the attainment of academic integrity face-to, face learning is essential in clinical social work faculties.
Ethics of Clinical Social Work Practice: The Ethical Duty
Professional social work organizations and higher learning institutions guide clinical social workers’ education. In the United States, plagiarism is addressed by the National Association of Social workers’ code of ethics (Kopels, 2018). On the other hand, integrity and competence are addressed by most international and national organizations, including the International Federation of special workers, and have particular attention to plagiarism. Of specific importance to this paper as far as exploring plagiarism framework will be the NASW code of ethics, as it overtly spells out clinical social work practice and students’ plagiarism standards.
The last part of this paper has explored academic integrity in terms of dishonesty, entailing plagiarism in higher learning institutions. This part tends to link this with a detailed examination and comprehensive practical suggestions. The previous part also investigated how plagiarism occurs in Clinical social work faculties in higher learning institutions. Here in the code’s context, instructors are anticipated to impart to students the skill and knowledge needed in professional practice together with a deep-rooted ethics understanding.
A critical aspect of ethical development that is of cumulative worry in clinical social work educational settings is plagiarism results in the assessment of skills and critical thinking that is compromised. This makes ethics a key examination topic within the context of clinical social work education and code of ethics. Even though academic institutions have set policies aiming at dressing plagiarism, clinical social work educators have exceptional ethical responsibilities to the profession. The NASW code of ethics clearly defines the obligation of the profession to address unethical behavior among fellow clinical social workers dynamically, to avoid duplicity of action and tracheary, and to uphold professional integrity. Founded on this canon, clinical social work education program administrators ought to be invigorated in a working environment that is ethical and which encourages the code’s compliance.
Notwithstanding the fact that the NASW code of ethics is infused all through the United States social curriculum. Up-to-date literature has left a lacuna as far as investigating it in relation to these ethical standards is concerned. Below a provision is given on the overview of academic dishonesty in the NASW code of ethics framework, the aim being to see institutional and educator detection of and reply to plagiarism as an ethical and professional duty. Instructors’ tutoring experience in private and public graduate and undergraduate clinical social work education programs have multiple experiences that they have acknowledged and replied to plagiarism among students.
Resultantly, these instructors have guidelines for response and identification of plagiarism. For this discussion, plagiarism will be defined as, the copying directly of text while failing to offer credit to the source. Directly copying text while the information is cited as a paraphrase. Presenting an idea that’s exceptional from another source as one’s original work and directly copying text from a particular source but offering credit to another.
Core Clinical Social Work Ethical Principles and Values
The NASW code of ethics elucidates two essential clinical social work values: competence and integrity. To sustain integrity as an essential value, the code founds as an ethical principle that clinical social workers are expected to behave in a responsible way. There is a call to act responsibly and honestly, promoting ethical behaviors. By this principle, NASW emphasizes the critical nature of honor and veracity inherent to the clinical social worker profession.
Competence, the other vital value, is strengthened by the ethical principle that need those in clinical social work occupation to work with professional aptitude and proficiency. This principle mirrors the educational process spirit and specifies social workers’ needs, including incessantly striving to upsurge their professional skills and knowledge and ensure they put them into practice. Clinical social workers must seek to contribute to their profession’s social base. Obviously, copying other people’s work is of little or no benefit in enhancing a person’s knowledge or even the overall knowledge base of the profession.
Ethical Standards
Adding to the essential values and ethical principles, the concept of academic dishonesty is covered by the NASW’s code’s various ethical standards. Two standards, 2.0 and 4.08, address the student’s role, while the other two standards, 2.11 and 3.03, address the instructor’s role (Darlene, 2022). With specificity, 3.07 touches on the administrator’s roles, and two other standards: 4.04 and 5.0, touch on all three group roles (Darlene, 2022). Together, all these standards exemplify the profession’s stance in addressing plagiarism in clinical social work education curricula.
Clinical Social Work Students’ Ethical Standards
Standard 2.01 confronts the matter of respect, the code describes a crucial constituent of respect as one in which clinical social workers ensure that they respectfully treat their colleagues. It also requires them to fairly and accurately represent the obligation and qualifications of colleagues. It is clear that other person’s views are to be regarded respectfully, including the compulsion of giving appropriate, truthful, and proper credit to reference materials sources in academic environments. Even more apparent is the fact that the NASW code intentionally classifies plagiarism as unethical, affirming that the work of others ought to be given appropriate credit.
In standard 4.08, an obligation is placed on clinical social workers to take credit and responsibility, such as the credit of authorships, only for work that they have genuinely contributed or done themselves. They ought to acknowledge other persons work and contributions honestly. The standard is overt in nature, affirming that, just like other clinical social workers, students should clearly offer the proper citation information relating to the original sources of all and any resources they use while formulating their academic work.
Clinical Social Work Instructors’ Ethical Standards
The code places educators in a unique place in implementing its additional components. Viewing the interactions between social work instructors from a collegiality point of view, the code of ethics outlines that instructors are obligated to respond to unethical and incompetent colleague behaviors. Plagiarism is addressed by standard 2.11, where distinct responsibilities linked to fellow clinical social workers’ unethical behaviors are outlined. It avows that social workers should ensure that they take adequate measures to discourage, correct, and prevent unethical conduct of colleagues.
It is clear that instructors must ensure students follow and understand the guidelines. The code places the responsibility as opposed to disregarding academic dishonesty on clinical social workers. When an educator becomes privy to an academic dishonesty occurrence, they should discuss it with the involved strident, making the student aware of the action’s unethical nature. The code is explicit on this, affirming that clinical social workers aware of a colleague’s unethical action ought to seek a resolution. When the decision is likely to be productive and feasible, they should discuss their concerns with their colleagues.
Moreover, to discuss their academic dishonesty concerns with the student, the code standard also obliges instructors to ensure that they are aware and ready to perform recognized institutional actions for challenging plagiarism. The code affirms the importance of social workers being in the know of setting out procedures and policies to handle concerns of unethical behavior of colleagues (Darlene, 2022). Clinical social workers ought to be conversant with local, state, and national procedures for handling complaints relating to ethics. These comprise the NASW procedures and policies created by professional bodies, regulatory bodies, and agencies.
For clinical social work instructors, the fact that they are academic institution employees makes it compulsory for them to address academic dishonesty. This is both an employment obligation and an ethical duty. Actually, clinical social work educators are expected to refer plagiarism occurrences to an ethical oversight committee. For instance, standard 2.11 avows that clinical social workers should not try to handle their worries in seclusion. Rather, when members of the profession are privy to the fact that their counterpart has acted unethically, they should utilize the appropriate prescribed channels, such as, informing the NASW committee.
Standard 3.03 of the code of ethics also discusses the educator’s role. The standard is concerned with evaluating another clinical social worker’s performance. It indicated that social workers that possess the responsibility of evaluating others’ performance should ensure they accomplish the duty in a manner that is fair and considerate and based on criteria that are stated plainly. Owing to the fact that instructors have the primary duty of evaluating the work of students, this has blatant consequences: the need to have guidelines that are established and which are followed steadily. All students involved in plagiarism should be subjected to identical procedures and criteria: failure to do so is unethical.
Clinical Social Work Administrators Ethical Standards
All Social work administrators, including clinical social work administrators, responsibilities are outlined in the NASW Code of Ethics standard 3.07. This standard’s primary provision deliberates the necessity for equitable and adequate resource apportionment (Darlene, 2022). The vital element applicable to academic dishonesty is that clinical social work administrators should take prudent steps. To ensure that the working environment they are accountable for steadily reassures compliance with the NASW code of ethics.
Administrators in the profession make sure they are reasonable enough get rid of organizational conditions violating, discouraging or interfering with the compliance of the code. Relating to Academic integrity and plagiarism, this standard requires that clinical social work administrators ensure that they not only uphold institutional procedures and guidelines but also actively support faculty members as they confront the academic dishonesty problem.
Clinical Social Work Ethical Standards Binding Students, Instructors, And Administrators
Two additional NASW code of ethics standards that relate to academic fraudulence in clinical social work education programs direct all parties. These standards are 4.05 and 5.01: 4.04 involves deceptive and dishonest behavior, while 5.01 deliberates the necessity of maintaining professional integrity. As far as deceptive and dishonest behavior is concerned, the standard avows that clinical social workers should not condone, participate in, or be linked with fraud, deception, or dishonesty. This equally applies to instructors, administrators, and students. In plain words, there is no place for dishonesty in clinical social work education. On the other hand, standard 5.01 necessitates all clinical social workers to ensure active efforts in sustaining the integrity of the profession’s practice. Particularly it calls for the realization of this through upholding high personal standards and working to ensure that the profession as a whole is enhanced.
The code avows that clinical social workers ought to work to ensure the promotion and maintenance of high practice standards. It obligates clinical social workers to advance and defend the profession’s knowledge, ethics, mission, and values. The workers ought to enhance, improve and protect the professions through proper research and study, active discussion, and the profession’s responsible criticism. Moreover, clinical social workers ought to contribute professional expertise and time to activities that encourage respect for the clinical social work profession’s integrity, value, and capability. Permitting a clinical social worker in their practice or as a student to circumvent the NASW code of ethics ethical guides is unethical and functions to vilify the profession.
Ethical Absolutism
Professional codes of ethics are a clinical social work student’s guiding force, as illustrated in the discussion on academic performance with integrity, and it connects to the ethics of clinical social work practice. When such a student commits an academic dishonesty act, this calls into question more than just a scholarly activity. This is due to the fact that such dishonesty mirrors a professional misjudgment. The concept of ethical absolutism is then triggered, and the question of whether or not it is possible that plagiarism can be ethical is posed.
If such poor choices, for instance, selecting to copy, are characteristic of a student’s lack of ability and willingness to follow established standards and guidelines. Then, such a student will, without a doubt, also fail to respect other ethical principles. When there is poor judgment in the academic realm, which is then recurrent in practice settings, this could disturb serving and assessing clients.
Furthermore, when identical professional code of ethics guides a social work instructor, who then superintends plagiarism. Then ethical absolutism concept will lead to the query of whether or not a clinical social work instructor’s disregard for plagiarism is ethical. The NASW code of ethics confers a responsibility that holds colleagues accountable to professional ethics by ensuring necessary steps are taken to address other person’s unethical actions. This responsibility can be rightly understood as a faculty with an intrinsic duty to instruct students in the code and ensure students are held responsible for adhering to the principles.
For instructors and educators, it is fundamental that the ethical absolutism principle prescribes that one cannot have unethical behavior in one realm and be considered ethical in others. It is either an individual who can uphold ethical standards or is unable. Academic integrity and professional integrity are not mutually exclusive. The following section proceeds to detail how acts of plagiarism cause harm to clinical social work practice.
Harms That Occur by Acts of Plagiarism and The Insult They Pose to The Profession
Plagiarism is a crime with victims both academically and in practice. Persons can profit either socially or financially, or both through the perverting of another person’s work as their own. This results in more of their articles getting published, as it drastically reduces the publishing time and offers other advantages, including enhancements in the course of the practice of the plagiarist. Such behaviors are highly costly to the actual authors. Plagiarism attitudes by researchers who also double as instructors and mentors affect education, this attitude possibly offers an approval impression. Graduate and undergraduate students, junior colleagues, and post-doctoral associates might model unsuitable standards. Plagiarism origins and the belief that replication is a trivial crime can indeed be entrenched in undergraduate training. Plagiarism has the effect of belittling both the practice and academia of clinical social practice at diverse levels. Below are the various harms that plagiarism causes both in academia and the study of clinical social work.
Academic Plagiarism and Workplace Deviance
It is established that clinical social work students believe they are more ethical than their counterparts in practice. Simultaneously, cheating literature self-report assessments indicate that students reported cheating throughout their academic endeavors. A survey of graduate and undergraduate clinical social work students from several universities concerning their agreement with ethical behavior in practice established that students do not understand ethical behavior from those in practice (Darlene, 2022). Of particular importance was the discovery that students believe it is necessary to have unethical behavior to advance careers, which must commence in school. An essential feature of unethical behavior is deviance at work. Workplace deviance is abusing an organization’s standards, which threatens its well-being. This goes to the extent of violating the organization’s policy, expectations and norms.
Typically, plagiarism is detrimental, particularly to the original author of a piece of work. It renders the work obsolete and results in time wastage for such an author. This results in discontent leading to the g pursing of perceived justice by those suffering from the consequences. This will result in workplace deviance with behaviors such as time theft, absenteeism, and effort withholding. Additionally, when students believe that unethical behavior is critical to advance in practice, as established earlier, this is perilous.
This promotes the utilization of clinical social work schools as these attitudes training grounds and possibly related behaviors. From the theory of planned behavior and reasoned actions, students with such attitudes will possibly find themselves in circumstances facilitating these attitudes’ application, leading to unethical behavior in their current and future workplaces (Amirun, et al., 2022). Workplace deviance in clinical social work settings entails behaviors violating normative expectations willingly in employment’s social context. There is an established relationship between socially perceived deviant behaviors in the workplace, such as alcohol abuse and smoking, and self-reported cheating conduct.
Plagiarism and White-Collar Crime
The objective of most clinical social work students is to acquire a degree they anticipate will influence their employment viability in professional settings. In a study between clinical students’ behavior and the potential behaviors of the profession’s employees, Rigoberto et al., (2022) associated federal prison prisoners confined for white-collar crimes with clinical social worker’s plagiarism. The study established that most prisoners jailed for white collar deviance, had cheating cases reported in the course of their clinical social work university life. As in most studies, the criteria used was self-reporting and thus weak. The absence of operative compliance and governance agencies makes it challenging to assess the prevalence of white-collar crimes in the practice of clinical social science (Rigoberto et al., 2022). A critical aspect that can be deduced is that academic dishonesty in clinical social work practice and academia is correlated with white-collar crime.
Plagiarism Leads to Loss of Integrity
A significant harm plagiarism causes in clinical social work is a lack of integrity. Particularly plagiarism results in long-term grave effects on professionals and students as it promotes unethical practices through the erosion of integrity. Integrity is the basis of character, it regulates the manner that individuals do their work in professional and academic clinical social work. Students that have integrity do the appropriate thing regardless of the learning conditions.
Permitting the plagiarizing of work by students in schools breeds an unethical learning culture, which would spread into the workplace. Fundamentally, clinical social work students who are dishonest academically would extend this in practice. Scholars Amirun et al., (2022) contend that academic dishonesty significantly predicts unethical behavior displayed in the workplace. The implication of these arguments is that by acts of plagiarism, the integrity of clinical social work students is compromised, predisposing them to unethical workplace behavior.
Universities have research and development as their primary outcomes, thus when clinical social work students cheat, their publications also become susceptible to plagiarism, which affects the researcher’s and the university’s integrity. As illustrated earlier, the NASW code of ethics obligates researchers to have their original work published in an elaborate peer-review process. Nonetheless, attempts by researchers to publish work that is plagiarized result in questioning the integrity of their work. This will cause a refutation of their work and their successive banning. A study by Marlen et al., (2021), elucidated that the Journal of Korean Medical Science editors noticed plagiarism on papers that unethical Chinese researchers had published and banned them from publishing for the next five years. Therefore, plagiarism results in losing researchers’ integrity among editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals.
Furthermore, plagiarism affects learning institutions’ integrity as they are the academic hubs where clinical social work students obtain values essential to their profession, lives, and society. The fact that clinical social work faculties inculcate ethics among students, they determine the values championed in practice. According to a study, universities are vital in determining integrity that will endure life-long among students (Zeenath et al., 2022). From such universities, clinical social workers’ personal and social responsibilities are determined.
Thus, regulatory bodies such as the NASW standards, employers, and parents expect higher learning institutions to nurture clinical social work students and inculcate the proper ethical values. Clinical social work faculties that overlook plagiarism lower the student’s integrity as they cannot meet the expectations that the code of ethics, pertinent bodies, and what society requires of them. Subsequently, no one is willing for their children to be schooled in university faculties with diminished and dubious integrity. Furthermore, clinical social work graduates may fail to practice as employers tend to reject graduates from universities that condone unethical behavior such as plagiarism.
Plagiarism Leads to Loss of Reputation and Respect
Plagiarism harms clinical social work students, leading to the loss of reputation and respect among the culprits. In contemporary times, technology has enabled clinical social science departments in universities to implement quality assurance systems and strict academic policies. The departments can perceive plagiarism through these measures and offer suitable punishment to students. Students’ punishment can range from expulsion, failure, suspension, and lowered grades. In instances that students are engaged in unintentional plagiarism of a specific work without a preceding plagiarism history, clinical social work departments typically punish them by failing them or reducing their grades in the courses affected.
Depending on a university’s adherence to the NASW code of ethics and academic code, stricter universities put such students on probation or suspend them. During this period, they learn plagiarism prevention through attendance of workshop of seminars and workshops. In intended and extensive plagiarism cases, clinical social science departments revoke academic certificates that they have been awarded and expel them. Statistics indicate that in the past five years to prevalent plagiarism and poor performance academically, over 8,000 students were expelled from American universities (Vibhash et al., 2022). This resulted in the loss of reputation and respect of these students among American universities due to their exhibition of academic dishonesty tendencies.
In practice, plagiarism also leads clinical social worker professionals to lose respect and reputation. Academic work is the foundation of career development and growth. Nonetheless, replicating another person’s work as one’s own has the effect of tainting the reputation and respect that professionals have gotten over the years. Thus, clinical social workers who have in their practice plagiarized work risk exposure and total loss of their careers.
Consequently, the forfeiture of respect and reputation has a massive effect on the practice of clinical social science, as clients, employers, and pertinent bodies would not trust their services. Such career damage is highly significant and irreparable as it can make one lose their academic credentials and practice license. Typically, this would result in a downgrading position by the employer and, at worst, sacking one from the practice of clinical social science. Afterward, it would be impossible for such a clinical social worker to reinstate their reputation in the labor market and reclaim their work positions even when they may choose to try different employers.
Ultimately, plagiarism ends the practice of such clinical social workers. Furthermore, the loss of respect and reputation is reflected in professional bodies, including NASW, which fails to recognize them. University is where most plagiarism happens; thus, its pervasiveness determines the reputation of clinical social work organizations. Research asserts that rules and regulations and an effectual punitive system determine the universities’ ability to restrict plagiarism (Vibhash et al., 2022). From this perspective, a university’s reputation relies on its capability to curb plagiarism among its students. When Clinical social science departments have weak and limited disciplinary systems and regulations, they overlook plagiarism.
Plagiarism Leads to Loss of Income
Plagiarism is also injurious economically: it leads those, particularly in the academic practice of clinical social work, to lose their income. The fact that the profession is merit-based leads to employers recruiting clinical social workers based on academic certificates. Plagiarism in practice will lead to certificate cancelation, which then compels the termination of a job by the employer. A study by Hunny & Swati, (2019) documents how multiple clinical social workers lost their job due to plagiarizing the work of other professionals, scientists, and clinicians. Thus, job loss is a substantial harm caused by plagiarism leading to loss of income.
Typically, readers of a published work pay a subscription fee to access journals, books, and articles from which the authors earn. Nonetheless, when plagiarized content causes the retraction of a piece of work by a publisher, the plagiarist cannot earn from their purported work. Even worse, when plagiarism infringes intellectual property rights, the authors may seek to enforce the NASW code of ethics through legal redress. Such suits will lead to monetary recompense, from such, it is clear that plagiarism is injurious to clinical social work practice as it will not only cause the victim to lose their earnings. But also, additional money, which they will use to compensate the authors.
Plagiarism Leads to Demoralization and Frustrations
The chief consequence of plagiarism appears to be entrenched personal demoralization and frustration on the clinical social worker engaged in it. Studies accept that western modernism has recognized the borrowing of words from innovative and creative authors as a crime against their property rights (Hunny & Swati, 2019). When clinical social workers engage in this unethical behavior, society often views them as a criminal. Even when the plagiarism committed by the victim is done in a short extension, even at times for the initial time and unintentionally.
The victim is accompanied by a robust dislike associated with the committed offense, making them an unworthy person. However, some scholars have attributed this view as exaggerated (Hunny & Swati, 2019). It is sturdily engrained that it would need the entire society to undergo reeducation to indicate that there exist diverse plagiarism forms. And although a strict NASW code of ethics exists, all individuals in the profession have plagiarized at once. Despite the explanation that might exist, the person involved in the act will feel demoralized and frustrated.
Plagiarism Leads to Diminished Corporate Image
Corporate image refers to an organization’s view that its stakeholders develop and the overall impression of the company’s outside world, including the media, general public, and client’s view. A study sought to link this with higher education and found that universities with reputable images in the marketplace are better competitive. Multiple institutions, including those offering clinical social work courses, have increased their investment in education to differentiate themselves from competitors by building a robust image of quality and prestige.
The institutions of higher learning have increasingly become highly competitive. This, coupled with the up-surging in the branding of their images, has resulted in clinical social work scholars only selecting the institution of higher learning with the best image (Cathal et al., 2022). With such perception-influenced decisions, when these institutions have their clinical social worker scholar engaged in plagiarism acts, this diminishes the institution’s image, leading to fewer academics preferring admission to the institution. This is a perfect exemplification of the harm that plagiarism leads to in an institution of higher learning’s image. The same applies to the corporate bodies that the plagiarist is working for.
Clinical Social Work Canons and Plagiarism
Clinical social work canons and the law are very clear on plagiarism. While previous parts have focused on the value of academic integrity in clinical social work practice connecting it with ethics. This part explores this with a view on the law and how it governs plagiarism relating it to clinical social work practice. Institutions of higher learning characteristically define academic misconduct in almost identical terms. An all-encompassing definition is: Academic integrity is the ethical policy or the moral code of academia. This entails values such as avoidance of plagiarism and cheating and upkeep of academic standards: rigor and honesty in academic publishing and research. An all-encompassing definition of plagiarism has been offered before in this paper.
Despite the seemingly inclusive definitions, every university and clinical social science faculty has its own opinion on what constitutes plagiarism and how it is dealt with. Courts, though, have not been extensively involved in plagiarism issues. The specific instances they have dealt with plagiarism are evident. One such court case concerned an applicant complaining that the university faculty disciplined him for plagiarism in an application for admission to the university. The court examined the case and found no established plagiarism in his application, and his punishment was unwarranted.
The canon established in this case was that the aim to deceive is a key to proof of plagiarism. Moreover, the specifics of the case showed what was involved was a lack of attention to details in other aspects and not an intention to deceive. The reported aspects were carelessness and a lack of attribution. According to the canon established in such a case, errors of negligence, referencing, and absence of technical knowledge do not count as plagiarism.
The specific case, even when viewed under the NASW code of ethics, was not plagiarism but a consequence of plagiarism. This case, viewed under the clinical social work lens, was concerned more with character scrutiny pursuant to practice licensing requirements. Plagiarism could be a breach of both criminal and civil law (Darlene, 2022). The copyright owner can seek various remedies, including damages, accounts of profits, and injunctions. Increasingly, university clinical social science faculties aim to respond to plagiarism instances and establish canons that reinforce the NASW code.
Examples of such canon require that where clinical social science students are involved in electronic submissions, they should be in a position to see a comprehensive online plagiarism report for their work before submitting it (Marlen,et al., 2021). This gives them a chance to rectify and amend any possible suspect wording. Such rules seek to favor students indicating the impact that the series of academic transgressions highlighted all thorough impact clinical social work practice canons. They have led to devising student-centered laws, allowing them to rectify any possible plagiarism before submitting a piece of work.
Naturally, when copied sections denote another student’s work, the confidentiality of the other student’s identity should be maintained. The process should entail this: on students uploading an assignment for submission, it should be instantly returned with the report’s copy. This enables its proper resubmission with acknowledgment of reading the report and complete knowledge of the offending sections and rectifying them (Gomathi, et al., 2022). This makes it challenging for a clinical social worker to claim carelessness, mistaken conduct, or carelessness if such a student acknowledged having read the report.
A heavy rule against plagiarism is prevalent in clinical social work academia. This strictness, as an exemplification of the academic transgression acts, impacts the practices’ canons. The fact that plagiarism, as an academic evil, exist in clinical social work practice has resulted in originality being highly guarded in the profession’s academic settings. A fundamental principle in professional scholarship is that rules countering plagiarism are not based on a specific widespread philosophical concept. Instead, they are context-specific, they are enforced and conceived to serve the distinct requirements of the institution that the probable plagiarist functions.
In the proper view of plagiarism and how it impacts the rules of clinical social work. Its perspective from the NASW code of ethics fades and is seen less as a moral universe breach and more as a breach of disciplinary decorum. It warrants one to be weary while painting the clinical social work academic setting norms into other realms. Astonishingly, while the academy may view plagiarism as a sin, in practice and professional settings. It may be a virtue, and this may explain why the case law referred to above, the plagiarist was not found guilty.
Another great exemplification can be when clinical social workers in academia involve their juniors in drafting practice papers. It is not a dark secret that such acts often occur in practice, and senior clinical workers often plagiarize the work of their juniors. The juniors often perform some academic work on behalf of their bosses as part of their work, which saves time and money for their superiors. Such viewpoints are essential to plagiarism’s effect in clinical social work canons. The repercussions often are another way of asserting that plagiarism is not an evil offense in practice. Professional tribunals and courts fail to sanction plagiarism in a brief based on supposed morality. Instead, an institution’s identifiable and precise needs are the premise that a rule relying on plagiarism is premised (Darlene, 2022). This is an example of instances in which canon and cases addressing plagiarism, including in clinical social work practices, disappoint. They fail to explain why it is not worth enforcing anti-plagiarism rules precisely.
Of course, this is not to assert that clear policy goals exist that underlie the risk. However, this judicial omission is telling to the profession as a whole. After such a transgression, one eliminates universal ethics from the table (Darlene, 2022). It can be puzzling to have a meaning that makes sense for a rule against plagiarism, such as the NASW code of ethics in clinical social work practice. A look at the interplay between plagiarism and clinical social work canon, the doctrine demonstrates to be unexpectedly intricate. This may leave one wondering whether the chase is worth it. Academics have to handle plagiarism in the often-round statement that it is subtle to have a lucid theory. This particularly explains the court’s reluctance as far as going beyond the conclusive explanation of plagiarism is concerned. An explanation that is more complete is not apparently worth the effort. After all, no one in practice will argue for plagiarism, though there is the recognition that plagiarism sometimes happens unintentionally.
The effect of the interplay and the current rules insists that despite clear academic and NASW codes of ethics, these acts are rampant. To put it plainly, plagiarism saves money and time. As long as the plagiarized material is appropriately edited and contextualized, the plagiarizing clinical social worker will take less time to produce effective written journal or practice articles (Darlene, 2022). The existence of multiple juniors who write content for publication for their clinical social worker seniors is perhaps the best indication of the vices of this economic and time efficiency. Judicial efforts to establish a thick norm against plagiarism, often to canons that stifle the broader distribution of the economic and time efficacies, have served to permit them.
Institutions’ Role in Plagiarism Reduction
The effect of plagiarism on clinical social work canon has left institutions of higher learning still suffering from the vice of plagiarism. When clinical social work rules, including the NASW code of ethics, are left to tribunals and judicial bodies, they tend to loosen the clinical social work canons, leaving the vice to spread, which is harmful to the profession. Thus, to ensure the vice is dealt with, the prevalent pedagogy in the literature suggests that clinical social work educational institutions take the lead in curbing plagiarism in the global clinical social work practice.
Scholars have realized the injurious nature that clinical social work canons suffer by trying to adjudicate plagiarism acts out of the institutions in which they transpire. Mohamed, (2022) observes the emerging comprehension among clinical social work practitioners and scholars that plagiarism as a problem can only be tackled by following the path of academia instead of punishment bodies and courts. An all-inclusive stance towards academic integrity views it as more than just a personal concern and recognizes the part that higher learning institutions play in catering to the development of understating. Of students and their understanding of plagiarism and other academic misconduct. Depending on other bodies or just the students’ truthfulness is not sufficient to develop an environment with academic integrity. Clinical social work faculties in universities, as ethical decision constructive role models, ought to emerge and continue their part in ethical decision formulation.
After witnessing the harm that leaving academic transgression acts to external bodies and the weakening nature this has to the profession’s canons, including the NASW code of ethics. Scholars have recommended the coming forward of clinical social work academic institutions to handle plagiarism and other linked academic misconduct to have an ethical practice environment that surpasses penalty, exposure, and prevention of students (Shipra, 2019). Personal misconduct has been demarcated as a by-product of a system under the influence of organizational, individual, social, and corporate aspects.
An all-inclusive and compact viewpoint encompasses initiatives aimed at integrity attainments in all academic sectors. This may adopt the form of the institution of higher learning vision, mission, well-defined policy, and admission procedure (Shipra, 2019). This approach ought to be mirrored in curriculum preparation and assessment. It also should be ingrained in visible recurring campus notices and information tendered in academic orientation sessions. And also in making sure the canons and code of ethics in clinical social work practice are adhered to, thus maintaining an educational atmosphere that is congenially healthy.
Barriers to Addressing Plagiarism
While the discussion all through has been on plagiarism in various realms. The proceeding section stresses the act’s influence on professional canons and the harms it poses, suggesting other bodies, such as courts, have done little to counter the vice. Here, specific focus is given to barriers that clinical social work instructors face while addressing plagiarism. This also affects the practice canons and may be detrimental to the profession.
Undoubtedly, while addressing plagiarism, clinical social workers experience various barriers. Some of these barriers can be personal, while others might mirror the institution’s view. Some of the reasons that clinical social work faculties fail to address academic dishonesty include failure to detect plagiarism, which entails instructors failing to consider plagiarism while reviewing a student’s work. They generally assume that all students are engaging academically in practices that are honest. Ambivalence is another reason: instructors recognize plagiarism but fail to respond to it. Rationalization entails the identification of plagiarism by educators but failing to pursue the issue with the student as they believe there are existing reasons that excuse the behavior (Cathal, et al., 2022). Minimization involves identifying plagiarism by instructors but viewing it as not imperative enough to address or as a minor issue.
Instructors also lack time, where despite their identification of plagiarism, they view pursuing it as time-consuming and thus fail to do so. At times instructors are not familiar with citation rules and what clinical social work demands as far as acknowledging another person’s work is concerned. Inadequate cognizance of prevailing procedures where educators fail to respond as they are unaware of the universities clinical social science plagiarism department requirements (Cathal, et al., 2022). Failure of institutional and administrative support by the university faculties is also a vital barrier. This is where an instructor may fail to take action regarding an act of plagiarism by a student as they believe the departments will not take any adequate measures on the case. Instructors sometimes also are uncomfortable with the consequences and fail to address such cases as they are unwilling to take the responsibility of having dismissed a student or offered them a failing grade due to plagiarism.
Most importantly, clinical social workers’ faculty members oversee dishonesty in a somewhat inoffensive manner. Nonetheless, the NASW code of ethics remains unambiguous regarding the compulsory nature of ensuring such points and concerns are addressed (Kopels, 2018). And to make it necessary for both distinct instructors and clinical social work education program administrators to ensure routine response and detection of plagiarism is made a priority (Kopels, 2018). As is the case among clinical social workers, certain faculty members may be of the belief that clinical social work professionals always engage in ethical behaviors. This results in a failure to comprehend that students can take credit for another person’s work.
Beyond the student’s best intention, is the belief that certain educators may just lack adequate time to evaluate the student’s work. While this is an uncertainty that can, to some extent, be understandable, it inevitable that even the ambivalent clinical social workers ensure that they comply with the standard that the NASW sets forth. Just as it is ethically unacceptable for students to have excuses, it is also equally unacceptable that educators can consciously fail to evaluate each student’s work aspects.
Certain clinical science work faculty members may prefer minimizing student plagiarism acts. This may be because minimizing offers them the advantage of having to pursue no further action. Moreover, faculty members may fail to want to appear to be too strict with students (Jennie, et al., 2022). They may thus adopt the stance that previous educational programs have been unable to adequately prepare students in such a manner that students ought not to be held accountable for their behavior. Regarding the deficiency of citation guidelines awareness, clinical social work faculties ought to follow a standard citation format (Jennie, et al., 2022). Moreover, to assess a student’s work accurately, the instructors are also obligated to be familiar with the guidelines that institutions use. After an instructor identifies student plagiarism, this will ensure that they are able to address the problem as they are familiar with the institution’s clinical social work faculty guidelines.
Clinical social work instructors might face institutional barriers despite their knowledge of the faculty’s procedure. Policies that are unclear and an administration that is not supportive hinder an instructor’s uniform response. Furthermore, certain instructors may prefer failing to pursue a course of action for academic dishonesty due to the fear of facing a kind of consequence from clinical social work faculty instructors who are not supportive or from angry students. It would be inadequate to explore plagiarism and the harms its causes to the clinical social work profession and fail to explore how it is detected.
Indicators of Plagiarism: Thesaurusization
Clinical social work instructors should be on the lookout for wording that is slightly imprecise or one that is excessively sophisticated. This is what is referred to as thesaurusization and can be a pointer to plagiarism. It happens when a passage is directly copied from another source, and synonyms are utilized to substitute certain chosen words in the sentence. Clinical social work is a noble profession that requires thorough research and not just thoughtless paraphrasing attempts that fall short of the profession’s code requirement and are also injurious to the profession, instructors should thus be on the lookout for thesaurusization.
Lack of Consistency
Text that is not consistent can be detected relatively straightforwardly. Clinical social work instructors are anticipated to be prolific readers both in student and professional writing. They ought to have skills that help differentiate between the two. A key characteristic of professional writing is the fact that it utilizes a more advanced vocabulary. This does not exclude the fact that students can also be in a position to use advanced verbosity, however, it can be an indicator of the need to investigate the text more thoroughly. Clinical social work instructors can look for signs of inconsistency between a student’s verbal and written skills and inconsistency between the same student’s written assignments. Inconsistency between a single written assignment can also be telling.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper has sought to focus on academic dishonesty to illustrate its perilous nature, how it affects clinical social work canons, and the insult it poses to the profession as a whole. It also has sought to seek some remedy by indicating how the profession’s instructors can detect plagiarism, thus avoiding the associated harms. This is important as the possible professional repercussions and grave nature of academic dishonesty indicate the need for an orderly and robust response both from clinical social work institutions and specific educators.
Inconsistencies between students and staff regarding the nature of plagiarism additionally complicate the academic dishonesty issue in the profession. As scholars have proposed, the response to plagiarism ought to mirror the intricacy of the issue and address the problem at the profession’s diverse levels, including at workplaces, ensuring seniors don’t take advantage of the work of their juniors. Additionally, clinical social workers’ professional’s education is different from other multiple academic disciplines in the compelling nature it has on that administrators, faculties, and students to follow ethical codes, adding to institutional plagiarism policies.
The ethical imperative spells out various recommendations to ensure a clear understanding of students regarding consequences, expectations, and suggestions for clinical social work instructors and faculties to uphold a steady response. Principally, there has been the suggestion to have a clear-cut definition of plagiarism addressing procedures ingrained in institutional policies that are readily accessible to students. There should be a replication of the guidelines in the course syllabus to ensure upfront exposure to the information by students.
Moreover, academic dishonesty as an issue ought to be discussed frankly at the onset of all classes. Clinical social work instructors must communicate ethical concerns relating to plagiarism to students. On detection of a plagiarism occurrence, there ought to be a consistent response in line with set out procedures. Instructors ought to advocate for plagiarism procedural response that adheres to the existing institutional practices’ appropriateness. Clinical social work institutions that fail to follow the procedure should be modified to incorporate the concept that it is unethical to be involved in plagiarism. And that it is equally unethical for administrators and instructors to fail to confront plagiarism. Clinical social work practice is founded upon robust codes which distinguish the necessity of holding the profession and individual accountable for ethical conduct, and compliance commences with clinical social work education.
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