Farooq, Rayees,

Sultana, Almaas

Source:

Ethics & Behavior; Apr 2022, Vol. 32 Issue 3, p210-224, 15p, 1 Diagram, 5 Charts
DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2020.1860766

Measuring students' attitudes toward plagiarism.

Academic misconduct is any type of cheating that compromises the educational process and
academic integrity of the institution (Mavrinac et al., [48], p. 196). Academic dishonesty
includes plagiarism, falsification, fabrication, paraphrasing, and other unethical practices.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) of India defines plagiarism as the practice of
taking someone else's work or idea and passing it as one's own. The UGC came up with the
promotion of academic integrity and prevention of plagiarism in higher educational
institutions in 2018 to prevent academic dishonesty. UGC divides plagiarism into four
different levels, and each level carries a penalty depending on the severity of the plagiarism.
Plagiarism is generally referred to as academic malpractice (Hayes & Introna, [35]). It is
defined as "an act of dishonesty related to authorship and copyright, a wrong against the
original author by stealing the idea or the text and presenting it as one's own" (Vehviläinen
et al., [74], p. 6). Plagiarism is a behavioral (Fishbein, [25]) and moral development problem.
The growing and widespread prevalence of plagiarism in universities is a threat to academic
integrity. Despite the various initiatives taken by the government to abolish the practices of
plagiarism among university students, the issue has not been extensively studied in the
Indian context. The growing number of cases of plagiarism in higher education is due to the
recent technological advancement. Easy access to digital sources is one of the reasons for
plagiarism. The act of cheating is often linked to various digital sources including electronic
journals, Google.com, Yahoo.com, Emerald, and Springer which is referred to as
Cyberplagiase (Anderson, [ 7]), mouse-click plagiarism (Auer & Krupar, [10]), and academic
cyber-sloth (Carnie, [17]). Quah et al. ([60]) suggest various forms of plagiarism such as using
the material from other's work without acknowledging them, submitting another person's
work without his or her consent, and word-to-word paraphrasing from a particular source.

Attitudes toward plagiarism

According to Conner and Armitage ([18]), the attitude of an individual toward a behavior
depends on the way he or she evaluates the behavior in terms of its outcomes, and it is also
affected by the behavioral beliefs of that person. In the context of plagiarism, studies have
established that "students condone or condemn academic misconduct, they are more or less
likely to form intentions to engage in cheating or plagiarism as well as engage in the
behavior" (Stone et al., [70], p. 244). Research indicates that student attitudes toward
plagiarism are typically more permissive and lenient (Ehrich et al., [22]; Gururajan &
Roberts, [32]). For example, a study comprising 239 medical students in Romania showed
that general student attitudes toward plagiarism were generally positive (Badea, [11]). Some
studies have indicated that students consider plagiarism to be justified under heavy workload
conditions (Ehrich et al., [22]). It appears that there is a poor understanding among students
about what exactly constitutes plagiarism and plagiarist behaviors (Devlin & Gray, [20];
Ehrich et al., [22]; Marshall & Garry, [47]; Song-Turner, [68]) within their academic work
and practice. Studies with an emphasis on cross-cultural differences to plagiarism indicate
that Asian university students had a more lenient and permissive attitude toward plagiarism
when compared to Western university students (Egan, [21]).

Researchers in the field of academic dishonesty argued that there are various contextual and
individual factors responsible for student's attitudes toward plagiarism. The contextual
factors include easy access to an online resource, the pressure of academic performance, lack
of training and level of understanding of university policies, as well as individual factors such
as gender, personality, educational level, and cultural background which are responsible for
the increased tendency to plagiarize (Hosny & Fatima, [38]; Kuntz & Butler, [45]). Harding et
al. ([34]) argued that gender and school cheating experience are closely related to student's
attitudes toward cheating. Students with a firm intention to plagiarize are likely to have a
positive attitude toward plagiarism whereas students less inclined to plagiarize have a
negative attitude toward plagiarism (Camara et al., [16]). Bloch ([14]) found that motivation
plays a vital role in shaping one's attitude toward plagiarism. Attitudes toward plagiarism are
also aligned with an individual's ethical surroundings. If others perceive plagiarism to be an
acceptable act, then one might become more inclined to cheat (Camara et al., [16]; McCabe,
[50]). A positive attitude toward plagiarism indicates an individual's tolerance, acceptability,
and positive perception toward an unethical task. Positive attitudes toward academic
dishonesty among university students are the result of time constraints, low confidence in
academic ability, and compliance with a surrounding unethical academic environment
(Keçeci et al., [44]).