Kiley's Case Study: Year 12 Student

Kiley is a Year 12 student and has earned topped marks throughout her secondary school career. She is well known by teachers and and students alike, and sets an example as a model student for others in the school. Kiley is also actively involved in community service projects, and she regularly talks about her desire to go into politics so she can help her local and global community as a responsible, educated, and informed leader. Yet, very recently, Kiley has been troubled: Her mother has been ill and Kiley has had to spend a lot of time staying home to take care of her. Balancing her mom’s illness with the rush to complete a graded presentation, Kiley choose to copy and paste large sections of her work and not cite them. To complicate things further, Kiley is working with a partner, Jill, on this presentation.
Jill finds out about Kiley’s plagairism.
Jill knows that Kiley has been having difficult family issues, but she also knows it is not fair for her to do all the work on her own. She too is busy, a model student, and hoping to get into top universities. If Jill reports Kiley, a note of plagairism will surely go on Kiley’s permanent academic record, severly limiting her chances to get into a top university. If Jill doesn’t report Kiley, she will have to complete double the work, and risk earning lower marks on her other assessments that week. Jill could also do nothing a risk that the teacher will confront them both for
plagairising.