Exploring the Impact of Generative AI Tools and Plagiarism Intensions in Academic Writing Among Multicultural Students

Abstract

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has significantly transformed societal productivity, learning, and work, demonstrating a pervasive impact across various sectors. In higher education, the rapid accessibility of GenAI has influenced teaching and learning, presenting both challenges to academic integrity and unique opportunities for practice. While the ethical use of GenAI by students can enhance their contributions to higher education, several factors may impede this potential. These factors include a lack of knowledge about the academic writing process and the ethical use of GenAI, limited understanding of the relationship between students' individual authorial voices and those of researchers, and deficiencies in critical and analytical thinking skills necessary for academic writing. Academic writing, particularly for students for whom English is not a first language (herein referred to as multicultural students), poses significant challenges. These challenges stem from inadequate vocabulary and grammar skills, as well as the pressure and concern regarding the extensive academic writing tasks required in higher education.Multiculturalism and EALD represent distinct analytical lenses, and choosing between them has implications for how student experiences are interpreted. EALD is primarily a linguistic classification, used to identify learners who require additional English language support and to guide interventions focused on academic literacy development (Gibbons, 2015; Cummins, 2017). It assumes that language proficiency is the primary factor shaping students’ academic challenges.In contrast, multiculturalism is a broader socio-cultural construct that encompasses not only linguistic diversity but also students’ cultural identities, educational backgrounds, values, and interactional norms (Banks, 2016; Gay, 2018). This lens is particularly relevant in internationalised higher-education settings where students may be proficient English users yet differ significantly in cultural expectations around academic integrity, technology use, collaboration, and authority.For this thesis, multiculturalism is adopted because the participant cohort is culturally diverse but not predominantly defined by language deficit. An EALD framing would narrow the analysis to linguistic issues, whereas multiculturalism allows examination of the wider socio-cultural influences that shape students’ perceptions and uses of AI in learning (García & Wei, 2014; Vertovec, 2007). This approach therefore provides a conceptually accurate and analytically richer foundation for interpreting the empirical findings.This study aims to explore multicultural students’ perceptions of plagiarism and academic writing, and their intentions to use GenAI tools in academic writing, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual framework. The findings of this research reveal that multicultural students use GenAI for various reasons and in diverse ways. Although they are aware of academic integrity, they may choose to use GenAI ethically or unethically. Undergraduates often lack adequate writing skills to produce academic work and may resort to plagiarism despite understanding its implications for learning academic writing skills. Systematic barriers, such as poor academic writing skills, inability to think and write critically and analytically, and societal pressure to maintain a required Grade Point Average (GPA), influence their decision to plagiarise. Additionally, a lack of understanding of academic tasks and insufficient personalisation of these tasks were identified as factors contributing to students' decisions to plagiarise. Students recognised numerous opportunities in using GenAI and expressed a commitment to ethical use, aiming to adhere to principles of academic integrity. The study concludes with implications for students, educators, and higher education policymakers on the ethical use of GenAI to support the development of necessary judgments and practices for ethical academic writing.This thesis by publication comprises three phases and four publication outputs. In the first phase, a narrative review was conducted to examine academic writing, plagiarism, and GenAI use in higher education (Paper 1). In the second phase, 336 multicultural students were surveyed across the United Arab Emirates, Canada, and Malaysia, exploring various topics (Papers 2 and 3). The third phase involved focus groups with 24 undergraduate multicultural students, investigating their intentions, motivations, and perceptions of cheating (Paper 4).

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