Plagiarism in higher education across nations: a case of language students
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
ISSN: 2050-7003
Article publication date: 15 February 2021
Issue publication date: 27 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Many scholars have recognized the cultural dependency of the concept of plagiarism and have investigated the influence of cultural attitude on university students' plagiarism; however, since the findings are inconsistent and because plagiarism is a major concern in academic institutions in Asia, we were motivated to examine the understanding and prevalence of plagiarism among Canadian and some Asian language students.
Design/methodology/approach
To elicit the data, the questionnaire developed by Maxwell et al. (2008) was adapted for this study. The scale included three sections. In the initial section, the students' background information was inquired. Section two included 10 scenarios, all of which consisted of two levels; understanding and experience. Section three of the scale consisted of five open-ended questions. In fact, the questions intended to complement the survey findings. Finally, in the fourth section, five yes/no questions were asked. Because the respondents could evade answering some open-ended questions, we developed five questions with yes/no answers in order to probe deeper into the participants' answers.
Findings
The results showed significant differences among the participants concerning both understanding and prevalence of plagiarism. Most of the differences were between Canadian and Asian students in that Canadians had a higher level of understanding. They also enjoyed a lower rate of incidence of plagiarism. Nevertheless, further analyses revealed that the students' academic misconduct is probably influenced by other factors including lack of proper education rather than cultural differences.
Social implications
The findings lead us to argue that cultural differences may not be the main source of the prevalence of plagiarism across nations and that Asian language university students plagiarize mainly due to a lack of understanding of the principles of plagiarism. Therefore, Asian universities should take measures to make sure that they promote language students' understanding regarding the misconduct.
Originality/value
Apart from a few studies, no other study has scrutinized plagiarism across cultures. As such, our study attempted to shed more light on the student, especially language students' plagiarism across different nations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to all university professors and students who greatly helped us with data gathering although they may not agree with all of the interpretations provided in this paper. We are also grateful to the colleagues for their valuable comments on the first drafts of the questionnaire. We gratefully acknowledge helpful pieces of advice provided by Dr. Paul Barrett concerning the data analysis of the study.Ethics approval and consent to participate prior to data collection: The approval was obtained from the research committee of Research Deputy, IAUKSH (4009–98/10/7). All participants were provided written informed consent, prior to distributing the questionnaire.Funding: the author(s) received no specific funding for this research.
Citation
Farahian, M., Avarzamani, F. and Rezaee, M. (2022), "Plagiarism in higher education across nations: a case of language students", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 223-239. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-09-2020-0309
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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