IBEC Academic Honesty & Integrity 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which of the following referencing skills is MOST important for IB teachers to explicitly teach students to prevent unintentional plagiarism?
- How to write bibliographies only at the end of assessments
- How to distinguish between common knowledge and ideas requiring citation (Correct answer)
- How to use footnotes exclusively for all sources
- How to summarize sources without reading them fully
Correct answer: How to distinguish between common knowledge and ideas requiring citation
Teaching students to identify what constitutes common knowledge versus ideas that need attribution is foundational to preventing unintentional plagiarism.
Question 2: The IB learner profile attribute most directly aligned with academic honesty is:
- Inquirer
- Balanced
- Principled (Correct answer)
- Open-minded
Correct answer: Principled
Being 'Principled' in the IB Learner Profile means acting with integrity and honesty, which directly underpins academic honesty expectations.
Question 3: A student uses an AI writing tool to generate part of their Internal Assessment without disclosure. According to current IB policy, this would most likely be treated as:
- Acceptable if the student edited the output significantly
- A form of academic misconduct (Correct answer)
- Permitted as a research tool like a search engine
- Only a violation if the teacher explicitly banned AI tools
Correct answer: A form of academic misconduct
IB policy requires authentic student authorship; undisclosed use of AI-generated text in assessments constitutes academic misconduct.
Question 4: Which strategy BEST supports the development of academic integrity in IB students over time?
- Running plagiarism detection software on all submitted work
- Embedding research, citation, and ethical reasoning skills into everyday teaching (Correct answer)
- Requiring students to sign an honesty declaration before each assessment
- Providing a one-time workshop on plagiarism in Grade 9
Correct answer: Embedding research, citation, and ethical reasoning skills into everyday teaching
IB promotes an ongoing, curriculum-embedded approach to building integrity skills rather than one-off compliance activities.
Question 5: What is the IB's position on the use of plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin?
- It is mandatory for all IB schools and programmes
- It is prohibited as it assumes student dishonesty
- It is one useful tool but cannot replace a culture of academic integrity (Correct answer)
- It is only required for Diploma Programme extended essays
Correct answer: It is one useful tool but cannot replace a culture of academic integrity
IB acknowledges plagiarism detection tools as useful supports but stresses that building a culture of integrity is more important than reliance on detection technology.
Question 6: When scaffolding a research task, an IB teacher notices students copying from websites. The MOST effective first response is to:
- Report the behavior to the coordinator immediately
- Provide explicit instruction on note-taking and paraphrasing strategies (Correct answer)
- Reduce the research component of the task
- Switch to in-class assessments only
Correct answer: Provide explicit instruction on note-taking and paraphrasing strategies
Addressing skill gaps through direct instruction on note-taking and paraphrasing is the most educative and proactive IB-aligned response.
Question 7: Which of the following BEST describes the concept of 'authentic authorship' in IB assessments?
- All assessments must be handwritten to verify authenticity
- The work submitted genuinely reflects the student's own ideas, research, and expression (Correct answer)
- Students must work independently without any teacher feedback
- Only internal assessments need to demonstrate student ownership
Correct answer: The work submitted genuinely reflects the student's own ideas, research, and expression
Authentic authorship means the submitted work truly represents the student's intellectual contribution, regardless of format or amount of support received.
IBEC Academic Honesty & Integrity 2
Which of the following referencing skills is MOST important for IB teachers to explicitly teach students to prevent unintentional plagiarism?