Academic Plagiarism: Explanatory Factors from Students’ Perspective

Abstract

The study of academic plagiarism among university students is at an embryonic stage in Spain and in the other Spanish-speaking countries. This article reports the results of a research, carried out in a medium-sized Spanish university, based on a double method approach-quantitative and qualitative-concerning the factors associated with academic plagiarism from the students' perspective. The main explanatory factors of the phenomenon, according to the results obtained, are: a) aspects and behaviour of students (bad time management, personal shortcomings when preparing assignments, the elevated number of assignments to be handed in, etc.); b) the opportunities conferred by information and communication technologies to locate, copy and paste information; and, finally, c) aspects related to professors-lecturers and/or the characteristics of the subject-course (lecturers who show no interest in their work, eminently theoretical subjects and assignments, etc.).

Undergraduate students’ views on academic dishonesty

“…They found that students used the following opportunities: the wish to achieve success by either passing the subject well or graduating in general or too lenient punishments for avoiding academic dishonesty. Furthermore, the current study, similar to the study of Beasley (2014) and the results of others (Comas-Forgas & Sureda-Negre, 2010;Heckler & Forde, 2014;Honsy & Fatima, 2014) have found that students lack time management skills, and this is often considered the reason why students engage in academic dishonesty.…”

“…In studies carried out among students, the most typical reasons brought out are ease of participation in academic dishonesty (Rezanejad & Rezaei, 2013), not knowing how to plan time (Beasley, 2014;Comas-Forgas & Sureda-Negre, 2010;Heckler & Forde, 2014;Honsy & Fatima, 2014), and the desire to achieve success (Jones, 2011;Simkin & McLeod, 2010). In addition, the following reasons for academic dishonesty are often pointed out a lack of knowledge about current rules and the consequences when caught participating in academic dishonesty, a wish to receive higher grades, witnessing academic dishonestly committed by fellow students (Beasley, 2014), and influences of society (Heckler & Forde, 2014).…”

“…For example, they might not pay enough attention to works submitted by students and give students uninteresting tasks (Comas-Forgas & Sureda-Negre, 2010). Another reason for academic dishonesty is the unawareness of members of the teaching staff to teach the subject interestingly and understandably.…”

Plagiarism policies in Iranian university TEFL teachers’ syllabuses: an exploratory study

“…Studies have explored different aspects of the issue, such as students and teachers' perceptions of plagiarism (Ahmadi, 2014;Jones, Reid and Bartlett, 2007;Rezanejad and Rezaei, 2013;Zafarghandi, Khoshroo and Barkat, 2012), why students plagiarize (Bedford, Gregg and Clinton, 2011;Colnerud and Rosander, 2009;Comas-Forgas andSureda-Negre, 2010, Greer et al, 2012;Hughes and McCabe, 2006;Shanahan et al, 2013), and measures/strategies on how to deter students from plagiarism (Abdi, Idris, Alguliyev and Aliguliyev, 2015;Bretag and Mahmud, 2009;Gunnarsson, Kulesza and Pettersson, 2014).…”

Faculty Perceptions of Self-Plagiarism and Other Forms of Academic Dishonesty Among University Students

“…For instance, undergraduate students frequently assert poor accessibility to and/or poor relationships with faculty as justifications for engaging in academic misconduct (Kelley & Bonner, 2005). In addition, those students who perceive faculty as apathetic toward the assignment, the topic, (Comas-Forgas & Sureda-Negre, 2010), and the student (Park, 2003) may be more likely than peers lacking these beliefs to engage in academically dishonest behaviors.…”