Factors influencing plagiarism in higher education: A comparison of German and Slovene students

Assessment of the knowledge and attitudes of the Iranian medical faculty toward plagiarism

This study is among the few investigations that assesses knowledge and attitudes of faculty members of medical sciences universities regarding plagiarism. This investigation focused on the relationship between personal factors and knowledge and attitudes toward plagiarism among Iranian faculty members of medical sciences affiliated with the Ministry of Health. This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 247 participants using demographic questionnaires that collected data on attitudes toward plagiarism and knowledge of plagiarism. The questionnaires were uploaded on Porsline. The subjects were provided with the purpose of the study, informed consent, and the link to the questionnaire through WhatsApp. The mean scores of knowledge variables and different domains of attitude were calculated, and then, the obtained averages were compared in terms of age, gender, and participation in ethics workshop using univariate tests. Finally, the MANCOVA was used considering five dimensions of the questionnaire to assess attitude, as multiple response variables, and independent variables, including gender and participation in the ethics workshop and control of knowledge and age. The mean age of the subjects in this study was 38.9 ± 8.4. 79.4% of the participants were women. Overall, 79.8% of people participated in ethics workshops, of whom 78% were women, and 86.5% were men. The mean score of knowledge in men and women was 1.35 ± 0.19 and 1.56. ± 0.24, respectively, which was higher in women than men (PV <0.001). The mean score of total attitudes was 3.19 ± 0.46. There was a high level of knowledge of plagiarism and positive attitudes toward plagiarism avoidance or prevention among participants in this study, which may spread to students, and help to promote integrity in the educational and clinical environment in Iran.

Extraction of time-related expressions using text mining with application to Hebrew

In this research, we extract time-related expressions from a rabbinic text in a semi-automatic manner. These expressions usually appear next to rabbinic references (name / nickname / acronym / book-name). The first step toward our goal is to find all the expressions near references in the corpus. However, not all of the phrases around the references are time-related expressions. Therefore, these phrases are initially considered to be potential time-related expressions. To extract the time-related expressions, we formulate two new statistical functions, and we use screening and heuristic methods. We tested these statistical functions, grammatical screenings, and heuristic methods on a corpus containing responsa documents. In this corpus, many rabbinic citations are known and marked. The statistical functions and the screening methods filtered the potential time-related expressions and reduced 99.88% of the initial expressions (from 484,681 to 575).

Identifying the factors influencing plagiarism in higher education: An evidence-based review of the literature

The present study explores the major reasons for committing plagiarism, as reported in published literature. One hundred sixty-six peer-reviewed articles, which were retrieved from the Scopus database, were carefully examined to find out the research studies conducted to explore the most common reasons for academic cheating among students and researchers in different disciplines in higher education. An analysis of collected literature reveals that 19 studies were conducted to identify the perceived reasons of committing plagiarism. Four studies with similar constructs of perceived reasons of committing plagiarism, namely busy schedule, overload of homework and laziness, easy accessibility of electronic resources, poor knowledge in research writing and correct citation and lack of serious penalty, were conducted. The pooled mean and standard deviation of the four studies reveal that easy accessibility of electronic resources (Mean = 3.6, SD = 0.81), unawareness of instructions (Mean = 3.0, SD = 0.89), and busy schedule, overload of homework and laziness (Mean = 2.89, SD = 1.0) are important perceived reasons for committing plagiarism. The study findings could help create an effective intervention and a robust anti-plagiarism policy for academic institutions, administrators, and policymakers in detecting academic dishonesty while emphasizing the value of integrity in academic pursuit.

Factors influencing intention to plagiarize among nursing students in the Philippines

Background

Plagiarism is an ethical concern among students but is insufficiently discussed and acknowledged in some educational institutions. Determining what factors influence plagiarism can help the academic community manage its incidence.

Objective

This study determined the factors affecting the intention to plagiarize among Filipino nursing students.

Methods

Utilizing a cross-sectional research design, data were gathered from 304 nursing students last June 2021 using valid instruments administered online. Regression analysis identified influencing factors of intention to plagiarize.

Results

Findings indicated a generally low intention (M = 1.47, SD = 0.74) to plagiarize among nursing students. Internet literacy (B = -0.314, p <0.001), attitude (B = 0.257, p <0.001), moral obligation (B = -0.236, p <0.001), past behavior (B = 0.139, p <0.001), and subjective norm (B = -0.095, p = -0.001) influenced nursing students' plagiarism intention.

Conclusion

Several interrelated factors play major roles in nursing students' tendency to plagiarize. Creating an educational environment that does not favor the unethical practice of plagiarism is recommended for nursing schools.

Postgraduate students' perception of plagiarism, awareness, and use of Turnitin text-matching software

Plagiarism is a highly discussed issue in higher education institutions in recent times. Turnitin text-matching software has widely been adopted by many academic institutions in Ghana as one of the solutions to improving students' and faculty academic writing and a solution for detecting incidences of plagiarism. There has been little empirical research into what students actually know about plagiarism and their lived experiences of text-matching technology, despite the fact that a lot of research has looked at attitudes, motivations, and demographic characteristics related to academic dishonesty. This study used an online Google form for data collection. We enrolled 1054 postgraduate students of the University of Cape Coast. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS version 21.0, and the proposed hypothesis was tested using Structural Equation Modeling. Findings show that there was no statistically significant relationship between postgraduate students' academic levels and their perception of plagiarism. However, there is significant relationship between postgraduate students' perception of plagiarism and their use of Turnitin. There is also statistically significant relationship between postgraduate students' awareness of Turnitin and its use. This calls for increased awareness creation and sensitization, which can be accomplished through scientific writing workshops, focused on inculcating ethical research practices into students.

Academic dishonesty by students of bioethics at a tertiary institution in Australia: an exploratory study

Background

Institutions of higher learning are persistently struggling with issues of academic dishonesty such as plagiarism, despite the availability of university policies and guidelines for upholding academic integrity.

Methodology

This was a descriptive qualitative study conducted on 37 students of a Healthcare Ethics course at an Australian tertiary institution from February 2016 to October 2018. The purpose of the study was to explore the reasons for plagiarism detected the Turnitin^R plagiarism checking software and extensive review of manuscripts. The interviews were conducted in private rooms and in strict confidence. Thematic analysis was manually done.

Results

Four major themes namely, lack of interest; pressure of time with competing priorities; lack of understanding of the policy on academic honesty, and “the determined students” were identified. Sub themes under lack of interest were lack of preparation and effort, low self-efficacy, poor studying techniques, and convenience of internet sources. Under pressure of time, the subthemes were, misplaced priorities, procrastination, high workloads, poor planning, competing interests, and the perception of availability of time at the start of the semester. Regarding lack of understanding of the policy on academic honesty, the subthemes identified were, lake of awareness of plagiarism, lack of awareness of acceptable similarity, conflicting messages from tutors and confusion with high school learning. The determined students were those that either made all effort to reduce plagiarism but still remained high, used the another language at home other than English, had poor paraphrasing techniques or lacked resources for English language editing.

Conclusion

There are varied and diverse reasons for plagiarism. There is a need to systematically reinforce and educate students on issues pertaining to academic dishonesty and their associated implications.

Do biomedical researchers differ in their perceptions of plagiarism across Europe? Findings from an online survey among leading universities

BACKGROUND

Existing research on perceptions of plagiarism and cultural influences mainly focuses on comparisons between the Western World and the Eastern World. However, possible differences within the Western World have hardly been assessed, especially among biomedical academics. The authors compared perceptions of plagiarism among European biomedical researchers who participated in an online survey.

METHODS

The present work is based on the data collected in a previous online survey done in 2018 among biomedical researchers working in leading European and Chinese universities. Respondents based in Europe were grouped into three geographical regions (northern Europe, southern Europe and northwestern Europe) and their responses were analyzed using logistic regression analysis with adjustments for demographic factors.

RESULTS

Data were available from 810 respondents (265 northern Europe, 101 southern Europe, 444 northwestern Europe). In addition to their generally similar responses, different perceptions of plagiarism were observed among respondents in the three European regions. In summary, among the three European regions, Nordic respondents identified the most types of practices as plagiarism. Compared to the southern respondents, Nordic and northwestern respondents were more likely to consider less evident practices as plagiarism, such as Rephrasing another person's work without crediting the source [aOR_N|S 1.99 (95%CI 1.08;3.67), aOR_S|NW 0.50 (95%CI 0.28;0.91)] and With permission from the original author, using another's text without crediting the source [aOR_N|S 3.16 (95%CI 1.90;5.25), aOR_S|NW 0.26 (95%CI 0.16;0.42)]. In contrast, the southern respondents were the most inclined to recognize recycling of one's previously rejected research proposal as plagiarism.

CONCLUSIONS

In spite of a generally similar response pattern, the present study indicates different perceptions of plagiarism among European biomedical researchers. These intra-European differences should be considered when addressing plagiarism.

Extent of knowledge and attitudes on plagiarism among undergraduate medical students in South India - a multicentre, cross-sectional study to determine the need for incorporating research ethics in medical undergraduate curriculum

BACKGROUND

Undergraduate medical students in India participate in various research activities However, plagiarism is rampant, and we hypothesize that it is the lack of knowledge on how to avoid plagiarism. This study's objective was to measure the extent of knowledge and attitudes towards plagiarism among undergraduate medical students in India.

METHODS

It was a multicentre, cross-sectional study conducted over a two-year period (January 2018 - December 2019). Undergraduate medical students were given a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire which contained: (a) Demographic details; (b) A quiz developed by Indiana University, USA to assess knowledge; and (c) Attitudes towards Plagiarism (ATP) questionnaire.

RESULTS

Eleven medical colleges (n = 4 government medical colleges [GMCs] and n = 7 private medical colleges [PMCs]) participated. A total of N = 4183 students consented. The mean (SD) knowledge score was 4.54 (1.78) out of 10. The factors (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]; 95% Confidence interval [CI]; p value) that emerged as significant predictors of poor knowledge score were early years of medical education (0.110; 0.063, 0.156; < 0.001) and being enrolled in a GMC (0.348; 0.233, 0.463; < 0.001).The overall mean (SD) scores of the three attitude components namely permissive, critical and submissive norms were 37.56 (5.25), 20.35 (4.20) and 31.20 (4.28) respectively, corresponding to the moderate category.

CONCLUSION

The overall knowledge score was poor. A vast majority of study participants fell in the moderate category of attitude score. These findings warrant the need for incorporating formal training in the medical education curriculum.

Plagiarism among nursing students: A systematic review and meta-analysis

AIM

To summarize the findings from literature regarding the prevalence of plagiarism and its various types, knowledge, and attitudes of students toward plagiarism, factors associated with plagiarism, and the applied interventions to decrease the incidence of plagiarism.

BACKGROUND

Plagiarism is a major form of academic dishonesty practiced by students at all educational levels.

INTRODUCTION

Academic dishonesty was defined as any unauthorized help that adds to students' formal academic performance. These dishonest behaviors can be categorized as falsifying information, hiding errors, collaborating with colleagues when not allowed, and plagiarism.

METHODS

Systematic search of databases was conducted in September 2021 to identify studies that discussed plagiarism in nursing studies. We included 31 studies in this systematic review and meta-analysis, with a total of 9,175 nursing students. The analysis was conducted using RevMan software.

RESULTS

Plagiarism was the most frequent academic misconduct among nursing students (practiced by 55.3%). Paraphrasing without referencing was the most practiced form (39.53%), while submitting others' work without acknowledgment was the least one (9.61%). Most students were aware of the concept of plagiarism (80.8%) and had positive ethical attitudes toward it (88.26%). Plagiarism was negatively associated with age, parenting, and completing semester credits. However, it was positively correlated with average grades and liberal educators. Plagiarism was a significant predictor of clinical misconduct.

DISCUSSION

A gap in the students' knowledge and skills were noticed. These gaps may be contributing to the high occurrence of plagiaristic acts, besides the unethical attitudes.

CONCLUSION

Plagiarism is a serious academic misconduct practice that can be associated with subsequent clinical misconduct. There is a need to fill the knowledge and skills gap, and to set effective policies.

IMPLICATION FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY

In their attempts to eliminate plagiarism, nurse educators are encouraged to provide effective educational training and practical tasks, in order to fill the gaps in knowledge and skills. Additionally, implementing clear and effective punishment policies would prevent intentional plagiaristic acts. This would aid in introducing qualified nurses accountable for the health of patients.

An attempt to understand plagiarism in Kuwait through a psychometrically sound instrument

The purpose of this study is to understand student perceptions towards plagiarism and identify some factors influencing their plagiarist behaviour to be able to develop successful strategies to promote academic integrity and prevent plagiarism. Although academic dishonesty and plagiarism have been investigated by many researchers, psychometric qualities of these data collection instruments have generally been ignored, which has resulted in a shortage of standardized and validated questionnaires in the literature. Therefore, to address this issue the researcher ran a rigorous psychometric analysis on a previously developed and psychometrically evaluated questionnaire (Attitudes Towards Plagiarism). The modified instrument was conducted on 404 students studying in a private university in Kuwait in March 2022, representing the first administration of a psychometrically established plagiarism scale in the Kuwaiti context. The statistical analysis revealed that students’ perceptions are significantly different according to the high school type they graduated from, their reasons for studying at the university, and their post-graduation career plans, whereas gender, major and year of study do not cause statistically significant differences.

Comparison of the effect of training academic honesty using two workshop and virtual training methods on the knowledge and attitude of M. S. students

BACKGROUND

Nowadays, one of the most important challenges of the universities and higher education centers is academic dishonesty among students. Academic dishonesty is done through cheating, deception, and plagiarism, which creates serious educational, studious, and social problems for the students and society. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of virtual and workshop training on the knowledge and attitude of M. S. students in terms of plagiarism.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This research was an applied interventional study of quasi-experimental type having pretest and posttest and the participants of this study included 90 M. S. nursing students of Medical Science University of Shiraz in the southwestern part of Iran.

RESULTS

The comparison of the three groups indicated that virtual and workshop training, both, developed the knowledge and attitude of students regarding plagiarism; however, the comparison between two methods did not indicate a statistically significant difference.

CONCLUSION

Both virtual and workshop training methods had an effect on increasing students' knowledge and attitude. Regarding the positive effect of training academic dishonesty using two workshop and virtual training methods, both can be used as efficient and effective methods in training dimensions depending on the condition and facilities to prevent and reduce plagiarism in students.

Enhancing Business Schools’ Pedagogy on Sustainable Business Practices and Ethical Decision-Making

Business school curriculums are designed to improve business skills and a student’s eventual workplace performance. In addition to these business skill sets the emerging business environment demands softer skills associated with ethical decision-making and sustainable business practices. The objective of the study is to identify the key influencers of ethical orientation and attitudes towards the environment as a first critical step for curriculum planning designed to develop both ethical decision-making and environmental sensibilities of students in business schools. Using a bivariate regression analysis (OLS) that compared the established New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale and the newly introduced Ethical Orientation Scale (EOS), this study assesses environmental eco-consciousness and ethical orientation over time and across varying socio-demographic variables. The study shows first, that in addition to socio-cultural variables, situational factors influence ethical decision-making. Secondly, it illuminates that ethical orientations as measured by the EOS predicts beliefs about the environment as measured by the NEP scale. It further provides evidence of the ethical underpinnings of the New Ecological Paradigm as well as provides initial validation for the new EOS. These outcomes provide additional levers to assist business educators in the creation of high impact teaching strategies to measure and encourage ethical decision-making and sustainable business practices that protect the environment.

Preservice Teachers’ Perception of Plagiarism: A Case from a College of Education

Few studies examine plagiarism in a Middle Eastern context, specifically from the perspectives of preservice teachers. As future gatekeepers of academic integrity, preservice teachers need to understand plagiarism. This study surveyed 128 female preservice teachers in one university in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The survey explores preservice teachers regarding their understandings and reasons for academic plagiarism and their responses to particular scenarios. Findings indicate that preservice teachers have a thorough comprehension of plagiarism and suggest a lack of knowledge of citing sources, weak writing skills, a lack of time, and not knowing the research process as reasons for plagiarism. Informants' responses to six scenarios are presented to illustrate their perspectives further. Discussion addresses language and cultural issues to contextualize the study.

How prevalent is plagiarism among college students? Anonymity preserving evidence from Austrian undergraduates

Plagiarism in academia is endangering the veracity of any discipline. Yet, estimating the actual prevalence of plagiarism is difficult due to the sensitive nature of freely admitting actual offenses. Respondents to questions on plagiarism oftentimes conceal potential misconduct and thus refrain from truthfully responding to such a sensitive question. In this work, we therefore employ item-count techniques to provide a better estimate of the prevalence in academia using a student sample. Our results drawing on 428 students from an Austrian university reveal a high prevalence of plagiarism (around 22 percentage points). We also assess the robustness of the findings using placebo measurements. Our results suggest a much higher prevalence of plagiarism then comparison studies when respondents can be convincingly assured of their anonymity.

Impact of pressure, self-efficacy, and self-competency on students' plagiarism in higher education

To explore students' plagiarism in higher level education, we designed a quantitative study and collected data from enrolled university students from Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan. This was done by distributing a web-link for an online survey (Google form) through WhatsApp social media mobile software. We applied structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques by using IBM SPSS AMOS 24.0.0 software to analyze collected data. The research findings suggest that some human factors do in fact exist and that these factors drive students to engage in certain unethical practices of plagiarism. Apart from poor training and lack of skills on the students' part, the pressures and the self-efficacy they face as they engage in research practices can make students susceptible to plagiarize.

Internal and external factors of plagiarism: Evidence from Chinese public sector universities

AIMS

This study explores the effects of internal and external factors that encourage plagiarism from the perspective of students.

METHODS

We collected student data from five public sector universities in Anhui Province, China, by randomly distributing survey questionnaires to 250 students, 176 of which were usable. We analyzed the collected quantitative data through multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS

Our research results demonstrate that external and internal factors have a great influence on plagiarism. The control behavior and teaching factors have a significant positive impact on plagiarism, while information technology does not have a considerable impact on plagiarism. Among the external factors, a significant positive correlation exists between external stress, pride, and plagiarism; however, no significant relationship exists between academic skills and plagiarism.

CONCLUSION

The article concludes that grade level and enrollment status (full-time or part-time) are inversely correlated to plagiarism, which proves that the higher the academic level, the less the plagiarism behaviors occurs. This concept may be due to the fact that the higher the academic level, the stronger the plagiarism constraints might be, which in turn leads to a drastic decrease in plagiarism. Moreover, a negative relationship emerges between enrollment status (full-time or part-time) and plagiarism because part-time students who are committed to an employment are less likely to give their full attention to their studies.