Plagiarism activities among undergraduate

Plagiarism activities among undergraduate accounting students ‫ـــــــــــ ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬

Plagiarism activities among undergraduate accounting students: Azzaytuna Students’ perceptions Dr. Abdelfatah Omran Tumi *

Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine undergraduate accounting students’ perceptions of contributing factors to plagiarism activities. Survey methods were utilised to investigate the significance of different factors, and any differences related to student characteristics in accounting department at Azzaytuna University. Fifty eight responses were collected and analysed. Results show that lack of awareness, pressure, personal attitudes and availability of internet facilities are the contributing factors of plagiarism; while no evidence is found to suggest that either lack of competence, and laziness of students contribute to increase incidence of plagiarism activities.The findings have significant implications for educators to find ways to react to those factors, develop the detection and punishment of plagiarism activities, and to instruct potential performers. Keywords: Plagiarism activities, undergraduate accounting students, Azzaytuna Students.

Introduction University education involves learning ethical practice in academic writing, and recognition of others work by reference and acknowledgment. Plagiarism is defined as "the theft of words and ideas, beyond what normally be regarded as general knowledge" (Park, 2003, p.472; Rezanejad and Rezaei, 2013). It is the intended use of ideas and words of others with no clear acknowledgement of the source of that information. Beyond that, plagiarism is seen as a form of academic dishonesty, which involves using others' work without properly ‫ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬ *Lecturer, Accounting Department, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, AzzaytunaUniversity

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acknowledging where the ideas came from, regardless whether that action was intentionally or not. Plagiarism involves intentionally copying others' work and passing it off as your own (Palmquist, 2003). Plagiarism has been an issue of large anxiety in higher education for last decades. This issue has become very strict, particularly when potential members of the accounting profession are involved. The profession truly perceives the honesty and integrity of its members as significant characteristics in order to maintain the trust of the public in its accounting, compliance and auditing activities. Thus, ethical behaviour has been a fundamental feature of the programs of accounting bodies over a number of years (CIMA Ethical Guidelines, 1992), and especially so in the wake of high-profile corporate failures like those of Enron and WorldCom (Smith, Ghazali and Minhad, 2007). In addition, scandals of world top companies of Enron and World Com in early 2000s have brought researchers’ attention on the role of college and universities in ethical training of potential business leaders, and the accounting profession has had to re-examine ethics and its implications (Duska & Duska, 2003). One of the most widespread forms of plagiarism identified among students is a failure to acknowledge the original author in their research. Several researchers perceive that lack of knowledge about correct ways of citing and paraphrasing information are factors contributing to plagiarism (White, 1993). However, Yeo (2007) provides evidence of extremely high proportions of students plagiarizing electronic sources, as well as the discipline dependence of plagiarism (with the highest incidence in engineering subjects). She also emphasises the apparent lack of seriousness with which undergraduate students perceive this type of misdemeanour. Several studies have investigate plagiarism in different cultural 2


context (Ting, S; M, Musa and F, Mah 2014; Nazir and Aslam, 2013), and few have covered the issue of plagiarism in business schools and accounting departments (Abdolmohammadi and Baker, 2007; Smith, Ghazali and Minhad, 2007). However, no research paper has been published in the field of plagiarism in Libyan universities. Few studies have focussed on education in Libya; Al-Montasir (2012) has only studied the quality of outcomes for universities in Libya. She studied students and academic staff’s perceived factors influencing the quality of universities outcomes in two Libyan universities. This study will investigate the incidence of plagiarism among accounting undergraduates in a Libyan university, i.e. Azzaytuna University, and factors contributing to plagiarism. There is currently no evidence relating to plagiarism activities among accounting students, which examines the extent to which its incidence might be increasing in Libyan universities. Conducting such research in Libya is important as previous research suggest that there is culture-based difference of attitudes towards plagiarism (Devlin and Gray, 2007; Ashworth et al., 2003).

Literature review: Plagiarism can be seen to be part of a particular cultural configuration [which] assumes the individual ownership of work; personal ownership, creativity or originality, and the view that knowledge has a history; and past authors must be acknowledged. All these things are implicated in a certain western modernist episteme. Devlin and Gray (2007) note that plagiarism may be deemed acceptable in some cultures in that the copying of the work of expert authorities could be perceived as flattery. They note that for students whose second language is English, even the act of paraphrasing is puzzling since their 3


limited command of English would usually make it impossible for them to improve on the original wording. Ashworth et al. (2003, p. 26) suggest that consequently we should not be surprised if students from different cultures are puzzled at being prevented from including text from accepted sources in their assignments. With the availability of internet resources, with which students can easily copy and paste, plagiarism has become a major problem in today’s business schools (Ariail and Cavico, 2010), while at the same time decreasing the likelihood of educators being able to identify precisely a plagiarised source. Sterngold (2004) notes that the widespread of information technology has made available a much wider number of sources, facilitating the purchase or “cut-and-paste” of appropriate materials; and simultaneously it has decreased the chances of detection. A student can easily paraphrase another author’s ideas with no appropriate acknowledgment, aiming to get higher grades, and such activity is frequently attributable to desperation, often linked to procrastination or pure laziness. By generally analysing information relating to the issue of plagiarism Smith et al (2007) state that the most common reason for plagiarism is carelessness and last minute completion of assignments, and the main reason of plagiarism among students are lack of awareness about paraphrasing, or lack of knowledge about how to properly cite a source. Easiness of copy and paste is another reason facilitating internet plagiarism. Eerkes (2013) in The University of Alberta Guide to Academic Integrity observed the different reasons for academic dishonesty. Some of the basic reasons for academic plagiarism are detailed as follows:

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1. Poor writing and analytical skill, including lack of writing skills, poor knowledge of grammar, and ineffective strategy of construction of words, reasoning and arguments justifications, and most importantly, poor reading habits. Unawareness about citation methods is a main reason for plagiarism. 2. Problems in evaluating web-based resources, as students simply plagiarize the content, without realizing that it is regularly important to acknowledge internet resources as they are also considered as public information. 3. Carelessness: Unintended plagiarism is perhaps the most common reason, wherein the writer carelessly misses quoting or acknowledging the author and does not exercise cautions while paraphrasing the paragraph. Incautiousness while placing bibliographic information also leads to plagiarism. 4. Misunderstanding about concepts: Many students plagiarize due to confusion or misapprehension about the subject area and lack of clarity or confusion about the terminology and instructions of the assignment. 5. External and internal factors: Competition, pressure for grade, lack of guidance and training, inability to cope with the assignment modules are external factors of plagiarism whereas bad time management skills to complete research projects at the last minute is the main internal factor responsible for plagiarism. Nazir and Aslam (2010) aimed to investigate the students’ perception towards academic dishonesty, its severity and penalties for these behaviours in Pakistani universities. They found that students involve in academic dishonest 5


behaviour more often about which they believe to be less severe, and students suggested lower or no penalties for dishonest acts which are deemed less severe. Ting et al’s (2014) study compared the plagiarism norms and practices among pre-university, diploma and degree students. Specific features examined were perceived necessity to include citations in assignments, preferred punishment for plagiarism, and academic writing practices. Based on 263 responses to their questionnaire from three levels of university, results showed that the perceived necessity for acknowledgment in assignments is the highest for the degree students but the norm to necessitate citations and to discipline exclusion of citations is not extensive at all three levels. Most of the students thought that plagiarism should be penalised but preferred warning from their tutor, assignment resubmission and counselling. The most common plagiarism is the Mosaic whereby students combine texts from the same source or different sources without proper citation and referencing. The most common unethical help-seeking behaviour is copying another student’s work. The findings suggest that while lack of knowledge on citation and referencing may lead to improper or non-acknowledgment of sources, plagiarism cannot be dealt with by instruction on citation and referencing alone as respect for intellectual property can only be encouraged by dealing with plagiarism as a serious academic misbehaviour. In the field of accounting, Klimek and Wenell, (2011) have looked at ways to educate accounting students’ ethics, and how ethics should be integrated into the accounting curriculum. They investigated whether requiring a separate ethics course instead of integration has a significant effect on accounting students’ ethical reasoning abilities. They compared between ethical reasoning abilities among student who took an ethics course in accounting course before graduation, with those who 6


had ethics integrated into their accounting courses, and their results show that members of first group seem to have higher reasoning abilities that those in the second group, and based on their results, they recommend that NASBA to reconsider its decision to eliminate the requirement of a 3-hour course on Ethics for accounting majors (Klimek and Wenell, 2011). Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2007) investigate the moral reasoning and plagiarism among accounting students at two universities in northeast of the US, and found reverse relationship between the moral reasoning and plagiarism. They also found that students tend to plagiarize more at the end of courses than they do at the beginning. Their results suggest no relationship between age and plagiarism, while negative relationship between plagiarism and grade point average. Smith, et al's (2007) survey research aimed to study Malaysian undergraduate accounting students’ perceptions of factors causing plagiarism activities. Their results show that Malaysian undergraduate students had engaged in plagiarism activities to some extent, and these activities were linked with academically weaker, male students with negative attitude to their studies. Their results show that lack of awareness, lack of competence, and personal attitudes are the contributing factors of plagiarism; while no evidence is found to support the link between either pressure or availability of internet facilities and the increase incidence of plagiarism activities. This paper extends Smith, et al's research by investigating Azzaytuna University undergraduate accounting students’ perceptions of factors causing plagiarism activities. It is the first research paper to investigate this issue among accounting undergraduate students in Libya, and this study may give tutors and further research hints on how to deal with this issue. 7


Research methodology: The research population consists of all bachelor of accountancy students from two campus of one Libyan university i.e. Azzaytuna University. There were 180 students in the two campus; 98 in Tarhouna, and 82 in Souq Al-Ahad. Students at different levels, gender, and different characteristics were reached to represent the whole population. In addition, the literature suggest that personal factors may impact the incidence of plagiarism (Abdolmohammadi and Baker, 2007; Smith et al., 2007; Ting et al., 2014), thus related the data were collected to test such relations. A sample of around 32 per cent of the population was used to provide a sufficient number for statistical comparisons, and those sample items were randomly selected. The research strategy for this study was investigative based on survey using paper-based hand-delivered questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to each of sample items in a several classes, and they were given approximately fifteen minutes to complete the questionnaire. In order to answer research questions and fulfil research aims, questionnaire has been developed, by researcher taking in his account main reasons of plagiarism in the previous literature, and he utilised the questionnaire developed by Smith, et al. (2007). Several questions were added, and others were omitted to suit this research environment. The first part of the questionnaire contains demographic data of participants, as several research papers linked plagiarism to some characteristics of students as mentioned earlier. Second part is developed to test students' knowledge of how they site reference in general. The last part aim to investigate the reasons behind plagiarism divided into five main categories, those are lack of awareness, lack of competence, personal attitudes, pressure, and availability of internet facilities and laziness. A 8


pilot study were conducted to make sure that participants will understand questions, and make sure that the wording of questions is well developed to achieve research aims and answer what they were developed to answer.

Research hypotheses: To answer research question and achieve its aims, and based on literature review, hypotheses were constructed as the following: 1- Lack of awareness cause students to plagiarise. 2- Lack of competence lead students to plagiarise. 3- Negative personal attitude lead students to plagiarise. 4- Pressure lead students to plagiarise. 5- Availability of internet facilities and student laziness cause students to plagiarise.

Research instrument: Questionnaire sheet has been developed to gain insight into the main factors contribute to plagiarism activities committed by accounting students, and to test research hypotheses. Questionnaire sheet has four main parts, first consist of general information about participants which is used to have general idea about our research sample, make an idea of the extent to which the sample is representing the population, in addition, these general data may be linked to several factors. Second part investigates how students are aware of the way they should deal with different scenarios of referencing. Third part is the main part, and consists of thirty three questions investigating five factors may contribute to plagiarism, i.e. lack of awareness, lack of competence, personal attitudes, pressure, availability of internet facilities and laziness. One final question 9


is added to get students perceptions of penalties which they deem suitable for plagiarism activities. Number of sheets delivered, collected, missed and their average are stated in table (1). Table (1) response rate Number

Percentage

Questionnaire sheets delivered

70

100%

Collected

58

83%

Missed

10

14%

Incomplete

2

3%

Findings: Discussion of data analysis is based on 58 responses to the distributed questionnaire. Their views represent perceptions of relative importance of factors contributing to plagiarism activities. Test of normality and test of reliability were conducted. Cronmbach's Alpha Coefficients were calculated to confirm validity and reliability of our dataset. Test of normality show that data were normally distributed and thus parametric tests were used. Results show that respondents have different answers to how to reference different types of information. While majority were aware of the need to site references properly in several cases, most of them do not know how to cite some forms of references. For example, 76% of them do not site information copied from published papers properly. They think that citing page number is not required when they copy and paste from others work, and 74% think that citing page number is not required when they copy and paste from unpublished paper. About 71% think that when rephrasing others' words and ideas, it is not necessary to cite a reference. Thus, we can say that 10


several forms of plagiarism occur among undergraduate accounting students at Azzaytuna University. As data were normally distributed, parametric tests were conducted to test research hypotheses and achieve its aims. Thus, several probable reasons of plagiarism were tested. These factors were mentioned in previous research, and were classified in this research into five main factors. Difference between the average of responses to each statement and the average of scale (3) was tested using one sample t-test to find out whether the difference is significant. Firstly, considering lack of awareness, an average of answers in table (2) shows tendency to agree on three items, with an average of 3.59, with p value of 0.000 for (I do not know legal consequences of plagiarism); an average of 3.36 with p value of 0.012 for (I do not know what constitute plagiarism); and an average of 3.95 with p value of 0.000 for (I never attended any formal course conducted by university or lecturer on plagiarism). In line with Ting et al. (2014) and Smith et al. (2007), this suggests that lack of awareness is one of possible factors contributing to plagiarism activities. Table (2) One sample t-test (Lack of awareness) Mean

Std. deviation

T

df

Sig(2tailed)

I am not aware of intuitional rules and regulations

2.59

1.141

-2.623

53

.011

I never attended any formal course conducted by university or lecturer on plagiarism

3.95

1.102

6.425

55

.000

I do not know the legal implications of plagiarism

3.59

1.073

4.058

53

.000

Item

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I do not know how to properly acknowledge the author through citation

2.65

1.220

-2.099

54

.040

I do not understand what constitutes plagiarism

3.36

1.002

2.605

52

.012

I do not see plagiarism as a problem

3.15

1.393

.782

53

.438

However, lack of competence is not seen as an obstacle facing students and is not considered as possible factor of plagiarism. As shown in table (3), this can evidently be seen in participants’ answers of three questions. Students do not think that they either lack confidence to produce good research, or have difficulty in understanding their research field. In addition they disagree on their incapability in doing their research. Their tendency to disagree on these sentences were statistically significant at (α=0.05). Responses show no clear opinion on other sentences, those are: (I have difficulty in building sentences, I find it difficult to understand articles, and I have poor research skills). This result differs to Smith et al's (2007) results. This difference can be attributed to overstating levels of confidence students at Azzaytuna University. This can be supported by their mistakes in referencing assumed references as stated earlier. Table (3) One sample t-test (Lack of competence) Item

Mean

Std. deviation

t

df

Sig(2tailed)

I lack confidence to produce good research

2.59

1.044

-3.020

57

0.004

I have difficulty in building sentences

3.00

1.108

0.000

57

1.000

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I do not have good understanding of my research field

2.63

1.029

-2.704

56

0.009

I find it difficult to understand articles

3.16

1.041

1.156

55

0.253

I have poor research skills

3.05

1.007

0.394

56

0.695

I am not good in doing research

2.61

0.940

-3.099

56

0.003

Responses in table (4) show that students disagree on the personal attitude as possible factor of plagiarism. Their responses about five statements support this disagreement. They disagree on their lack of desire to work or learn, and the difference of average is statistically significant at (α=0.05) as p value of t-test is (0.004). This disagreement apply for the four other statements: (I am not interested in the topic, I am not afraid of being caught by the lecturer, I think that the lecturer could not identify it if I Plagiarise, My lecturer does not know the consequences plagiarism for the student). However, they agree that Action taken by the university to punish students who are caught plagiarising is time consuming, and this agreement is statically significant. Table (4) One sample t-test (Personal attitude) Item

Mean

Std. deviation

t

df

Sig(2tailed)

I do not have the desire to work or learn.

1.59

0.974

-11.055

57

0.000

13


I am not interested in the topic

2.38

0.964

-4.851

55

0.000

I am not afraid of being caught by the lecturer

2.75

1.481

-1.275

54

0.208

I think that the lecturer could not identify it if I Plagiarise

2.40

0.997

-4.515

56

0.000

My lecturer does not know the consequences plagiarism for the student.

2.49

1.169

-3.231

54

0.002

I found the lecturer reluctant to take action against students who commit plagiarism

3.16

1.135

1.069

54

0.290

Action taken by the university to punish students who are caught plagiarising is time consuming

3.48

1.062

3.399

55

0.001

I feel it is not important acknowledge the original writer

1.91

0.986

8.202

54

0.000

to

Table (5) shows that, pressure upon students is high, and can be seen as possible factor of plagiarism contrasting to Smith et al. (2007). This can be seen by looking to the mean of students' answers, which range from 3.71 to 4.31 for four sentences, showing agreement on these sentences; while two answers were around 3, which indicate no clear opinion about these two sentences. By looking at t-test figures in table5, it can be confirmed that the difference between the mean of first four sentences and the test-value of 3 were significant at α=0.05, which show the agreement among students on the pressure on them by their families, colleagues, time, and the amount of assignments during a given period of time. Average of their responses was 14


ranging from 3.71 to 4.31, and p value of t-test was 0.000 for all of them as shown in the table. Table (5) One sample t-test (pressure) Mean

Std. deviation

t

df

Sig(2tailed)

My family has high expectations of me to obtain good grades

4.17

1.028

8.683

57

0.000

I do not want to lag behind my colleagues, so I want to pass

4.31

1.158

8.619

57

0.000

I have limited time to finish my work

3.75

1.090

5.224

56

0.000

I feel pressure to complete many assignments during a given time period

3.71

1.060

5.080

57

0.000

I have huge work to do in one semester

3.09

1.254

0.533

55

0.596

I have poor time management

3.04

1.217

0.222

54

0.825

Item

Lastly, table (6) shows that availability of internet facilities is seen as one of possible factor of plagiarism; while students do not consider themselves lazy. Different to Smith et al. (2007), availability of internet is considered as one of possible factors contributing to plagiarism. Opinion of students on four statements are ranging from 3.33 to 3.84 and t-test show that the difference is significant at (α=0.05). Those statements are (I think that cutting and pasting from the internet and word processing is much easier and faster; I found it is easy to download articles from web sites; I found that there is too much information available in electronic format especially from web 15


sites; I feel it is easier to plagiarize because the types of academic assessment given by the lecturers are similar) and Ttest show that p-values were 0.006; 0.003; 0.000; 0.022 respectively, and this means that the difference is significant at (α=0.05). Table (6) One sample t-test (Laziness and availability of internet facilities) Mean

Std. deviation

t

df

Sig(2tailed)

I want to avoid hard work

2.58

1.166

-2.660

54

0.010

I am lazy and used to delaying my work, and this leads me to complete my assignment anyway.

2.11

1.129

-5.984

56

0.000

I think that cutting and pasting from the internet and word processing is much easier and faster

3.48

1.287

2.856

57

0.006

I found it is easy to download articles from web sites

3.50

1.218

3.127

57

0.003

I found that there is too much information available in electronic format especially from web sites

3.84

0.960

6.625

56

0.000

I feel it is easier to plagiarize because the types of academic assessment given by the lecturers are similar

3.33

0.966

2.2367

48

0.022

Item

However, laziness is not considered a possible reason of plagiarism as responses in table (6) show that students disagree on the related two sentences (I want to avoid hard work; and I am lazy and used to delaying my work, making me to complete my assignment anyway). The average of answers were 2.58 and 2.11 and p-values of t-test were 0.010 and 0.000 for these two sentences respectively, showing that the difference is 16


statistically significant at (α=0.05). In general, students do not consider themselves lazy, but they think that availability of internet sources, availability of numerous articles on internet are possible reasons of the increase in action of copy and paste in their assignments. Further analysis suggest that, similar to Smith et al (2007) and Ting et al (2014), female students tend to have superior average than male ones, as correlation between gender and cumulative average is (0.493) with p-value of (0.000). Interestingly, results show that male students are found to have more pressure on them, in terms of having limited time to finish their work (r=0.303 with p value of 0.023), and having many assignments to do in one term (r=0.415 with p value of 0.001). In line with Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2007), results also show that students tend to plagiarize more at the end of courses than they do at the beginning. This can be evident as correlation of possible forms of plagiarism with student semester was (-0.304) with p value of (0.014).

Conclusion: The study showed that the students often plagiarise unintentionally when they write their coursework assignments. The plagiarism may be attributed to lack of knowledge of citations and referencing conventions and the most serious form of plagiarism when they summarise texts from others work without attribution. This study also shows that plagiarism is probably encouraged by lack of awareness, pressure, personal attitudes and availability of internet facilities. The findings suggest that students need to learn not merely citations and referencing conventions but also respect for intellectual property, and the universities need to work at generating norms that sustain ethical academic writing. It may be of importance to suggest that students take courses in ethics in research and research methods later in their accounting program to develop 17


their morals and research skills as well. Further research is encouraged to investigate the incidence of plagiarism in other universities, and from tutors’ perspective.

References: -

Abdolmohammadi, M. and C. Baker (2007), The relationship between moral reasoning and plagiarism in accounting courses: A replication study. Issues in Accounting Education. 22 (1), pp. 45-55.

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CIMA Ethical Guidelines (1992), Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, CIMA Ethical Guidelines, London.

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Duska, R. and B. Duska (2003). Accounting ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

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Klimek, J. and K. Wenell (2011), Ethics in accounting: an indispensable course? Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 15 (4), pp 107-118.

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Nazir, S. and S. Aslam (2010), Academic dishonesty and perceptions of Pakistani students. International Journal of Educational Management, 24 (7), pp 655-668.

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Palmquist, M. (2003), “The Bedford researcher”, available at: www.bedfordresearcher.com/links/writing_resources.cfm?type ¼ writing&discipline ¼ writing_plagiarism

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Park, C. (2003), In other (people’s) words: plagiarism by university students –literature and lessons, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28 (5), pp. 471-88.

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Rezanejad, A. and S. Rezaei (2013). Academic dishonesty at universities: The case of plagiarism among Iranian language students. Journal of Academic Ethics, 11(4), pp.275-295. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10805-013-9193-8

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Rosnow, R. and M. Rosnow (1995), Writing Papers In Psychology, 3rd ed., Brooks/Cole, Pacific Grove, CA.

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Smith, M., N. Ghazali and S. Minhad (2007), Attitudes towards plagiarism among undergraduate accounting students: Malaysian evidence. Asian Review of Accounting. 15 (2), pp 122-146.

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Ting, S; M. Musa and F. Mah (2014), Plagiarism norms and practices in coursework assignments. International Journal of Education. 6 (1), pp73-89.

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White, E. (1993), “Too many campuses want to sweep student plagiarism under the rug”, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 39 No. 25, p. A44.

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Yeo, S. (2007), First-year university science and engineering students’ understanding of plagiarism, Higher Education Research & Development, 26 (2), pp. 199-216.

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