Content Specialists’ Anti-Plagiarism Pedagogical Interventions: A Thematic Review

Abstract

This paper presents a thematic review of the anti-plagiarism instruction of content specialists as reported in a range of articles published in the decade of 2014–2023. A total of 28 articles were identified through systematic searching and a ChatGPT-assisted selection process based on a set of inclusion criteria. Specifically, we aimed to include those articles that contain sufficient details of the instructional procedure as well as an evidence-based report of the effectiveness of the pedagogical intervention. A coding scheme of two dimensions (“Rationales for the pedagogical interventions” and “Characteristics of the pedagogical interventions”) provided a framework for our analysis of the focal literature. By focusing on content teachers’, as opposed to language teachers’, pedagogical practices in addressing the issue of plagiarism in varied geographical and institutional contexts, this review study provides insights for both content and language specialists to draw upon and will serve to raise awareness for the value of collaboration between content and language teachers in handling academic literacy issues such as plagiarism.