A Comparison of the Act and Frequency of Plagiarism between Technical and Non-Technical Programme Undergraduates

Abstract

Concerned with intellectual theft, we decided to examine intellectual theft among undergraduates at a higher education institution. The aim of this study was to compare the act and frequency of plagiarism, particularly between programmes, gender, year of study and academic performance. This study adopted the quantitative approach, using a questionnaire to gather the students' background information and the general practice of intellectual theft. It was administered to 120 students. For the purpose of this study, we categorised the programmes into Technical programme (TP) and Non-Technical programme (NTP). This study found that the act of plagarising was prevalent in both categories of the programmes, however, more prevalent among the technical programme students than the non-technical programme students. We also found that the act of intellectual theft was more evident among the males than female, junior than seniors and average academic achievers than high achievers. A comparison between programmes found significant differences in the act of plagiarism among gender, particularly among the female NTP students, among the Year 3 students and among the high achievers. No significant difference was found in relation to the frequency of plagiarism between programmes and gender, but among the students who sometimes plagiarise by level of study and by academic achievements.

Eliciting ELT Students’ Understanding of Plagiarism in Academic Writing

“…Meade (1992) revealed that among business, engineering, science and humanities faculties of 31 US universities the first two ranked top (87% and 74% of the students respectively) as the students admitted they have plagiarized at least once throughout their university life. These findings were confirmed by BavaHarji et al (2016) who also found out that plagiarism is more prevalent among students in technical rather than non-technical fields. However, students who are predominantly in the threat category and who might resort to plagiarism are ESL students as they are often involved in foreign language writing and they do not have native proficiency in it.…”

“…In this light, research on English as a Medium of Instruction students and the students of other majors such as ELT might provide different results. Studies on age difference (BavaHarji et al, 2016;Straw, 2002) found that younger students cheat more often than older and mature students, which partly contradicts the conclusion made in the study of Brown (1995) which stated that undergraduate and graduate students 'show similar frequencies of unethical behavior'. Research on the correlation between academic ability and plagiarism has also brought conflicting results.…”

“…The third and largest group is represented by field correlative studies that looked into detection of plagiarism and the analysis of what type of students plagiarize most. There have been investigations based on gender difference (BavaHarji et al, 2016) with some evidence that male students, on average, plagiarize more than female. Other research studies attempted to identify the students of what majors tend to plagiarize most frequently.…”

Examining the Role of Gender and Educational Level in Committing Plagiarism by Iranian EFL Graduate Students

“…students, which indicates the educational level of the students may exert an influence on their academic dishonesty. More recently, the findings of BavaHarji et al (2016) supported the idea that educational level can be a determining factor in committing plagiarism. Also, Yang's (2014) study revealed that students of different genders and educational levels displayed different understandings of plagiarism.…”

“…As can conspicuously be observed, previous research has yielded conflicting results with regard to the role of gender and educational level in academic dishonesty. Although results of some studies indicate that there exists a relationship between students' gender and their ethical behavior (Ameen, Guffey & McMillan, 1996) with most of the studies finding greater prevalence of plagiarism among male university students as compared to their female counterparts (Athanasou & Olasehinde, 2002;BavaHarji et al, 2016;Becker & Ulstad, 2007;Brunell, Staats, Barden & Hupp, 2011;Egan, 2008;Lin & Wen, 2007;Straw, 2002), in the context of Iran, Ahmadi (2014) found no noticeable role of gender in engaging in plagiarism by university students. Nevertheless, regarding the educational level, he found that B.A.…”