Internet Plagiarism: Perceptions and Reality
Internet Plagiarism: Perceptions and Reality

A Study of Taiwanese University Students

Summary/Abstract: New trends in higher education, including autonomous learning and distance learning, not only create new opportunities but also bring about some challenges in terms of academic ethics. One of such challenges is student Internet plagiarism. This survey has a preliminary character and explores the awareness of and attitudes to plagiarism among EFL students in Taiwan. Forty-six second-year students studying at the Department of Applied English in a private university in southern Taiwan are surveyed. The main instrument eliciting the data for this report is a questionnaire. The questionnaire includes three items of which the first two are related to students' awareness of and attitudes to Internet plagiarism, and the last concerns their own "copy-and-paste" behavior. The findings show that, in spite of the fact that the majority of respondents are informed about plagiarism, almost all of them admit that they plagiarize more or less frequently when doing assignments in their English classes. The paper concludes with a discussion on possible causes of plagiarism among Taiwanese students and offers suggestions on how to increase students' literacy with regard to academic ethics and develop respect of academic integrity in them.

• Details
• Contents