Investigating Predictors of Academic Plagiarism among University Students

Abstract

Academic plagiarism is increasingly becoming a challenge to academic integrity worldwide, owing to the ease of access to free information online. The aim of this paper was twofold; first, to ascertain the perceptions of transport and logistics management university students regarding academic plagiarism, and second, to determine the predictors of university students’ plagiarism practices. A self-designed structured questionnaire was developed to collect information from the students of their understanding of plagiarism (UP), the plagiarism practices (PP), the understanding of the university plagiarism policy (UPP), the understanding of the departmental plagiarism policy (DPP), the awareness of the university and departmental training workshops (TOP), and the adequacy of the university and departmental training workshops (AOT). Independent t-tests were computed for the differences in plagiarism, based on home language and gender. Also, a one-way ANOVA was computed to test if the year of study, the degree enrolled for, and race, had an impact on plagiarism practices. Lastly, a regression model was computed to determine the impact of the plagiarism predictors on the plagiarism practices. The results of this study revealed high-levels of the understanding of plagiarism, and an awareness of the university and departmental plagiarism policies. However, an analysis of the plagiarism practices revealed moderate levels of plagiarism, indicating a likelihood of intentional plagiarism among students. Two significant predictors of plagiarism practices among university students were identified as; the understanding of plagiarism and the understanding of the university-wide plagiarism policy. University instructors and education managers are informed through the findings of this study that clear plagiarism policies are important in reducing academic dishonesty among students. It is important to continuously train students on what plagiarism entails and how to avoid academic dishonesty.

Resetting Integrity Through Communication on Plagiarism: University Classrooms Weaving Values into the Social Fabric

“…I want to do the right thing," portraying a reasonable degree of integrity leadership. The case also relates well with earlier findings that plagiarism is affected by students' level of understanding (Nabee et al, 2020; and internalization (Labib et al, 2021) of plagiarism and its impact. Beyond comprehending the issue, M40+ internalized the need to abandon the misconduct for the long-term divine blessing mentioned extremely briefly by the instructor in reference to a specific section of the holy book of Islam (the Quran), while welcoming similar input from other religions.…”

The Perception of Academic Plagiarism in Industrial Engineering Students at a Public University in Lima

“…Similarly, the findings on the perception of the dimensions of academic plagiarism can be compared with the work of Nabee et al [4], who determined the mean and standard deviation for each of the items that described the most important aspects in the perception of plagiarism by students, such as knowing the anti-plagiarism policy of the university, knowing if the application of Turnitin helps to be aware of the plagiarism, knowing if paraphrasing is plagiarism and perceiving if plagiarism in the university is normal. In this sense, the studies are similar, since they handle the possible dishonest behaviors that academic plagiarism involves.…”

“…In this sense, the studies are similar, since they handle the possible dishonest behaviors that academic plagiarism involves. However, Nabee et al [4] identified other predictive aspects of plagiarism practices and did not break academic plagiarism into dimensions.…”

“…Currently, it is a challenge for universities to eradicate academic plagiarism from their classrooms, despite the fact that in a globalized world, there are tools or computer applications that can verify the percentage of coincidence with other texts, such as articles and research that have been published on the web. However, as stated by Nabee et al [4], it is possible that the implementation of anti-plagiarism software does not solve the problem, since this type of tool can only identify the level of coincidence with open access resources on the internet, which are databases that in many cases can be evaded by students. The author's findings showed that the students were aware of the institution's plagiarism policy and highlighted that the use of anti-plagiarism software helped them improve their writing.…”

Students Perceived Confidence in Writing Publishable Articles

“…In writing an academic paper, it is easy to get a lot of resources and cheat from them without citing. Therefore, the use of a plagiarism checker is to save the copyrights from violation for the publishers, but some publishers who are using some antiplagiarism soft-wares over the internet need more effort to detect the plagiarism or cannot be detected at all (Nabee et al, 2020).…”