An investiagtion into the state of plagiarism in writing assignments among third year students majored in English in one of Vietnamese University and some preventive teaching strategies

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -------- HOÀNG THỊ HỒNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STATE OF PLAGI

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



HOÀNG THỊ HỒNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STATE OF PLAGIARISM IN WRITING ASSIGNMENTS AMONG THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS MAJORED IN ENGLISH IN ONE OF VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITIES

AND SOME PREVENTIVE TEACHING STRATERGIES

(ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÌNH TRẠNG ĐẠO VĂN TRONG VIẾT TIỂU LUẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CỦA VIỆT NAM VÀ GỢI Ý MỘT SỐ CHIẾN LƯỢC

GIẢNG DẠY)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



HOÀNG THỊ HỒNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STATE OF PLAGIARISM IN WRITING ASSIGNMENTS AMONG THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS MAJORED IN ENGLISH IN ONE OF VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITIES

AND SOME PREVENTIVE TEACHING STRATERGIES

(ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÌNH TRẠNG ĐẠO VĂN TRONG VIẾT TIỂU LUẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CỦA VIỆT NAM VÀ GỢI Ý MỘT SỐ CHIẾN LƯỢC

GIẢNG DẠY)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Phạm Thị Thanh Thuỳ

Hanoi, 2014

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DECLARATION

I, hereby, certify the thesis entitled “An investigation into the state of plagiarism in writing assignments among third-year students majored in English in one of Vietnamese Universities and some preventive teaching strategies” is the result of

my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and this thesis has not, wholly or partially, been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions

Hanoi, 2014

HOANG THI HONG

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge my deep gratitude to all those who have supported me in doing this independent study

Firstly, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my supervisor,

Dr Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, for her valuable time and useful guidance towards the completion of this study

Secondly, I am extremely grateful to the staff members of the Faculty of Post

- graduate studies for their helpful lectures

My special thanks are also sent to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates,

as well as my colleagues for their invaluable comments and criticism and also for their continued interest and encouragements

Thirdly, I appreciate the assistance and cooperation given to me by lecturers and students at National Economics University Without their sincere participation, this paper would not have been possible

Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my beloved people, my parents, my husband and my children for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement

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ABSTRACT This article explores the issue of plagiarism from the perspective of students studying in Vietnamese Universities The study was designed to investigate

students’ awareness regarding plagiarism The writer also attempted to measure the

state of plagiarism among university students in terms of the forms and the seriousness of plagiarism She then wanted to identify some preventive teaching strategies to improve academic practice (including academic writing and referencing skills) based on the results gained To some extents, findings from the study indicate that the students had inadequate understanding about plagiarism definition and its notion, plagiarism policies, and penalty for acts of plagiarism Therefore, they had committed most of common forms of plagiarism: using paraphrased, summarized, quoted texts without showing the original sources, inventing biblography or data, and submitting online papers and handing as their owns Level of seriosness of plagiarism acts was varying from copying some key words, sentences to entire of their assignments The most serious case was that some students submitted an online work and handed in as their own The number of this case is not high; still it is also an alarm to educators However, most of students were unintentional plagiarists due to objective causes like their unawareness of plagiarism, lack of proof reading, poor writing academic skills and carelessness when taking an assignment Some others committed plagiarism intentionally because of some subjective causes like their laziness, bad time management, desire

of higher grades, pressure from family and friends Nevertheless, the problem of plagiarism should not fall on the shoulders of the students alone The instructor should take responsibility for neither checking for plagiarism nor teaching about ethics, which is one course rarely offered in universities The solution would be resolved from the top, teachers should be a good model of plagiarism fighters In this minor thesis, the researcher would like to offer some preventive teaching strategies against plagiarism

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as Foreign Language FLF: Foreign Language Faculty NEU: National Economics University Ss: Students

Ts: Teachers

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LIST OF FIGURES

1 Figure 1: Frequency of having students do writing

3 Figure 3: Students’ awareness of plagiarism policy 21

4 Figure 4: Students’ awareness of plagiarism penalty 22

5 Figure 5: Teachers and students’ attitude towards plagiarism

8 Figure 8: Seriousness of student plagiarism at the university 29

10 Figure 10: What the students should do to avoid plagiarism 31

11 Figure 11: What the teachers should do to reduce plagiarism 32

12 Figure 12: What the university should do to limit plagiarism 33

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TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IV LIST OF FIGURES V TABLE OF CONTENT VI

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Purpose of the study: 2

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Significance of the study: 3

6 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 Theoretical background 5

1.1.1 What is plagiarism? 5

1.1.2 Text plagiarism 6

1.1.3 Forms of plagiarism 8

1.1.4 Why students tend to plagiarize? 9

1.1.5 Penalty for student plagiarism 10

1.2 Review previous studies 11

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 14

2.1 Research questions: 14

2.2 Research methodology 14

2.2.1 Questionnaires 15

2.2.2 Discourse analysis: analysis of students’ essays 16

2.3 Data collection procedure 16

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2.3.1 The setting of the study 16

2.3.2 Participants’ background information 17

2.3.3 Procedure 17

2.4 Data analytical units 18

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 19

3.1 The difficulties students encounter when taking a writing assignment 19

3.1.1 Difficulties in doing a writing assignment 19

3.1.2 Students’ awareness of plagiarism 21

3.1.3 Forms of plagiarism committed by students 24

3.1.4 Seriousness of student plagiarism 28

3.1.5 Reasons for student plagiarism 29

3.1.6 Ways to reduce student plagiarism 30

3.2 Summary 33

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 35

4.1 Students’ awareness of the notion of plagiarism and its penalty 35

4.2 Main forms of plagiarism caused by students 35

4.3 Reasons for student plagiarism 36

4.5 Recommendations 37

4.6.1 To students 37

4.6.2 To the teachers 38

4.6.3 To university policy maker 41

PART C: CONCLUSION 43

1 Recapitulation 43

2 Pedagogical implication 44

3 Limitations 45

4 Suggestions for further research 45

REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1a: SURVEY ON PLAGIARISM IN WRITING I

viii APPENDIX 1b: SURVEY ON PLAGIARISM IN WRITING IV APPENDIX 2 – LIST OF TABLES VII

Such of act is considered as plagiarizing Plagiarism is regarded as a serious and growing problem which significantly diminishes the academic integrity of university education In today’s digital age with breathtaking advancements in the electronic storage, search and dissemination of information, plagiarism is rapidly becoming a crisis The jaw-dropping amount of documents available on the Internet makes plagiarism so easy that students find it difficult to resist the temptation They tend to work late at night, do some “copy-and-paste” on a paper due the next morning Unfortunately, even when this apparent student ‘cut-and-paste’ mindset is acknowledged, the extent of plagiarism and academic misconduct is likely much worse than it appears Recently, numerous studies have shown that plagiarism and other types of academic fraud are increasing among undergraduate students In a study conducted in 2001, McCabe posits, based on students’ self-reported attitudes that high school students may not consider cutting-and-pasting from the Internet to

be cheating With the same result, Kraus (2002:84) expands this notion by being

“convinced that a rapidly growing number [of students] simply do not see plagiarism as wrong.’ It is students’ unawareness that leads to the number of plagiarists in universities is growing dramatically In a recent article published by the Center for Academic Integrity (CAI), Professor Don McCabe claims that “On most campuses, 70% of students admit to some cheating” while “Internet plagiarism

is a growing concern” because although only “10% of students admitted to engage

in such behavior in 1999”, almost “40% admitted to it in 2005” (Mc Cabe, 2005)

In Vietnam, the number of plagiarist coming to light has increased dramatically recently In a recent study, QT789 Groups (2013) state that 58% students consider

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plagiarism as normal, up to 75% students has plagiarized at least once at university Plagiarism among Vietnamese students is so popular that a foreign scholar has claimed “[students in] Vietnam has a cheating cultural” (cited in Ngo Tu Lap, 2013) In the talk show ‘copy-paste’ (SIB, 2014), Hoang Minh Luong shares the fact that in Vietnam, it is not surprising to find numerous assignments or even graduated papers ready to be used in photocopy shops Students just buy some and make some changes and hand in as their own For him “plagiarism is the intellectual corruption or intellectual thief.”

Being a high school teacher, the author hardly has any chance to access the academic settings to give a large point of view on plagiarism in professional writing Due to her desire of investigating the real situation in higher educational

environment, she managed to carry the minor research, entitled “An investigation into the state of plagiarism in writing assignments among third-year students majored in English in one of Vietnamese Universities and some preventive teaching strategies” In the light of this significant students’ viewpoint, and the

acknowledgement of how serious a problem academic plagiarism is, the writer mentions to do a scrutinizing research on state of plagiarism as well as students and teachers’ awareness of plagiarism with the hope of providing additional insight

2 Purpose of the study:

The study aims at providing additional insight about plagiarism among students NEU By doing so, the writer attempts to suggest some of preventative teaching strategies in order to limit this academic misconduct In order to achieve this aim, the study has to fulfill the following objectives:

- obtaining students’ awareness at one of Vietnamese Universities regarding

plagiarism

- investigating the state of plagiarism at university in terms of forms and

seriousness

- identifying some preventative teaching strategies for raising awareness of

students and improving academic practice

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3 Research questions

In order to find out whether the students have a fulfill understanding about plagiarism, especially in academic writing, and the state of plagiarism among Vietnamese students This study was designed to highlight the following research questions:

- What is students’ awareness of plagiarism at the university?

- What are some common forms of plagiarism committed by university students?

- What are some ways to raise awareness of plagiarism among students?

- What are some preventative teaching strategies in order to reduce plagiarism among students?

4 Scope of the study

Due to the limit of time and restricted scope of study of a minor thesis, the study only focused on measuring students’ awareness regarding plagiarism at the university, the common forms of plagiarism committed by students as well as the factors underlying student plagiarism at the target university Based on that, some recommendations on preventative teaching strategies are given for teachers to raise students’ awareness and to limit act of plagiarism among students

The study was limited to the area of teaching and learning academic writing skills among 60 third –year students majored in English and 12 teachers in FLF of NEU

5 Significance of the study:

As one of the uninvestigated issues in teaching to write academically for university students in Vietnam, the present study on students’ plagiarism in writing assignments will make certain contributions to the development of Vietnamese academic settings The study is at the same time hoped to benefit teachers, educationists and researchers of related fields

• For students, the results of the study will give impact to the improvement of their academic writing skills Student knows how to make full use of critical reading and reference citation skills to avoid plagiarism

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• For teachers, the findings of this study will give valuable and useful information

on teaching academic writing Some suggestions on preventive teaching strategies may help students overcome this serious academic dishonesty

• The educationists may base on the facts provided in the study to make necessary changes in terms of curriculum, facilities to limit academic misconduct and to improve Vietnamese academic environment

• The research will serve as the foundation for further related researches Other researchers may also take the strengths and weaknesses of the study into account to better theirs

6 Design of the study

This minor thesis consists of three parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion

Part A: Introduction This part presents the rationale, the aim and objectives of the study, scope of the study, method of the study and design of the study

Part B: Development It is divided into 4 chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background This chapter discusses the theoretical background and previous studies relevant to the study

Chapter 2: Research methodology It discusses the research questions, the approach adopted, the methods of collecting data, the data collection procedure (timeline), and data analysis methods

Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion It shows the detailed results of the surveys and covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected from questionnaires and discourse analysis

Chapter 4: Findings and recommendations This part shows the findings and suggests some preventive teaching strategies

Part C: Conclusion This part includes an overview of the study, suggestions for further research and limitations of the study

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Theoretical background

1.1.1 What is plagiarism?

“Plagiarism” is a controversial concept among educators and scholars over the world It is rather difficult to define exactly what it is In this part, the writer attempts to make it clear by representing some previous studies

Derived from the Latin word “plagiarius” (“kidnapper”), plagiarism refers to a form

of cheating that has been defined as “the false assumption of authorship: the wrongful act of taking the product of another person’s mind, and presenting it as one’s own” (Lindey, 1952 cited in Gibaldi, 2003:66) For this definition, plagiarist commits two faults: intellectual theft and fraud since using and passing off other’s ideas, information, or expressions on purpose but failing acknowledge the sources Plagiarism then is morally and ethically wrong, or is regarded exactly as literary stealing Sharing the same viewpoint, Ragen (1987 cited in Pecorari, 2008:27) with his words: “to take a piece of writing without acknowledging the creator is plain theft” was the verdict of an academic commenting on a case of plagiarism that attracted public attention Since then, the immorality of it has been proclaimed frequently, and in scathing terms

Although many researchers are concerned about the themes of plagiarism in their studies, the phenomenon of plagiarism among students is still increasing To minimize it, many universities have put explicit penalties against this misconduct behavior However, they may not be aware that most students commit plagiarism because of their misunderstanding this concept Therefore, developing a clear definition and showing students clearly what are allowed, what are not allowed to

do will provide big help in fighting plagiarism Indiana University Bloomington (2005) has documented the term plagiarism clearly as using other’s ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information or just simple like

“taking credit for work that is not really theirs[writers] (Wilhoit, 2009:225)

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Learning Support Network Curtin University of Technology (2005:4) states that

“plagiarism means presenting the work or property of another personas one’s own, without appropriate acknowledgement or referencing.”

To sum up, plagiarism is a hard defined concept However, Harris (2001: 133) may offer the most easily understandable definition of plagiarism when he states that: “Plagiarism is the failure to cite sources properly Plagiarism is pretending that

an idea is yours when in fact you found it in a source You can therefore be guilty of plagiarism even you thoroughly rewrite the source’s words One of the goals of education is to help you work with and credit the ideas of others When you use another’s idea, and whether from a book, a lecture, a web page, a friend’s paper, or any other sources, and whether you quote the words or restate the idea in your own words, you must give that person credit with a citation No source may elect not to be cited”

Plagiarism is sometimes a moral and ethical offense rather than a legal one since some instances of plagiarism fall outside the scope of copyright infringement, a legal offense (Gibaldi, 2003: 66)

1.1.2 Text plagiarism

The term text [textual] plagiarism, for Pecorari (2008: 4), actually refers to the act

of reusing “words and/or ideas from another source, without appropriate

attribution” He also classifies this term into two categories: prototypical plagiarism and patch-writing (distinguished by the presence or absence of intentional

deception) For him, “prototypical plagiarism” is defined as the use of words and/or ideas from another source, without appropriate attribution, and with the intention to deceive (p4) “Patch-writing”, on the other hand, is characterized by the lack of deceptive intent Rebecca Howard (1999, cited in Pecorari, 2008:5) defines this term as ‘copying from a source text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one synonym for another’ In this way,

patch-writing is virtually inevitable as writers learn to produce texts within a new

discourse community, and is a beneficial part of the learning process, a primary means of understanding difficult texts, of expanding one’s lexical, stylistic, and conceptual repertoires, of finding and trying out new voices in which to speak

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Patch-writing gives writers the chance to flex their muscles under controlled and

guided circumstances—guided by the linguistic choices of the source authors

Patch-writing comes about as a result of novice writers’ need for support as they develop, and not because the writer intends to deceive the reader Patch-writing and prototypical plagiarism can therefore be seen as subcategories of textual

plagiarism, distinguished by the presence or absence of intention to deceive (Figure 1.1)

Figure 1.1 Types of plagiarism (Pecorari, 2008: 5)

To make it clear, some scholars define textual plagiarism into two types:

unintentional plagiarism and intentional plagiarism in term of with and without

intention of plagiarizing

1.1.2.1 Unintentional plagiarism

Unintentional plagiarism occurs when students use the words or ideas of others but fail to quote or give credit, usually because they do not know how Examples of unintentional plagiarism include omitting a citation or citing inaccurately, paraphrasing by only changing the sentence structure of the original text or by changing the sentence structure but not the words, and putting quotation marks around only a part of a quotation (Pecorari 2003: 318) It sometimes is the result of the writer’s inability to decide or remember where the idea came from He may have read it long ago, heard it in a lecture since forgotten or acquired it secondhand

or third-hand with colleagues

1.1.2.2 Intentional plagiarism

The most serious case of academic thievery is plagiarizing intentionally It happens when writer or researcher intends to copy the thoughts or language of others and claims them for his own Student commits plagiarism intentionally when he asks the

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essay of another student and copies out parts of it or downloads sections of Internet sources with no references for the reader These are clearly deliberate actions by the student, and often are designed to deceive the teacher, although occasionally there are situations where student may be unaware that these actions are not sanctioned (Wendy, 2008: 30-31)

1.1.3 Forms of plagiarism

According to Gibaldi (2003:70-71), the most conspicuous form of plagiarism is to obtain and submit as your own a paper written by someone else Other forms of plagiarism occur when the writer fails to acknowledge the sources, including of repeating and paraphrasing another’s wording, taking particularly apt phrase, and paraphrasing another’s argument or presenting another’s line of thinking

Wilhoit (2009: 225-228) makes it clear by identifying seven forms of plagiarism that covers both the presence and absence of intention to deceive as followed:

- Purchasing a paper: buying a paper from other and turning it in as if it were one’s own

- Turning in a paper someone else has written for you: letting one take credit for work the other has actually completed

- Turning in another student’s work without that student’s knowledge: searching another student’s file or paper on computer and turning it in as if it were your own

- Copying a paper from a source text without proper acknowledgement: copying directly the whole or part of an essay from electronic materials without proper quotation and documentation

- Copying material from a source text, supplying proper documentation, but leaving out the quotation marks

- Paraphrasing material from a reading without proper documentation: using your own words to paraphrase the source text without documenting the passage properly is a kind of stealing the other’s ideas

In conclusion, acts of plagiarism may vary from the most blatant (intentional copying of a whole paper and pretending that one has originally produced it) to unintentional (or getting to place quotation marks around a quote) or even unconscious (unconsciously repeating a memorable line from one’s reading) Deliberate plagiarism is a matter of dishonesty while unintentional plagiarism is

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usually a matter of laziness or carelessness However, even if a writer has made an honest mistake, it appears equally grievous to the readers

1.1.4 Why students tend to plagiarize?

Plagiarism is prevalent among students in academic integrity Numerous studies have shown that many factors have been proposed for why students cheat or plagiarize To make it clear, the factors causing plagiarism among students can be clarified into five following categories (Sentleng, 2010: 58-59):

- School instruction: the roots of plagiarism can be traced to high school instruction as learners have earned good grades (Walker 1998: 93)

- Subjective and objective factors: Subjective causes include attitudinal and individual circumstances, ambition and competitive energies of participants of academic life and ignoring the rules and conventions that represent what is right and what is acceptable Objective causes; however, include pressures and expectation directed at individuals by society, family and other external sources It also includes society’s demands for skilled and educated workers and professionals For these, lack of adequate subject knowledge can force students to rewrite exactly from sources

- Referencing skills: Lloyd (2007: 52) stated that many students do not posses academic writing skills Students need to be constantly reminded why referencing is important Referencing methods, referencing techniques and acknowledging all forms of intellectual material must be taught

- Assignments: Wendy (2008: 5) suggested that plagiarism can be reduced if a lecturer puts effort into setting the assignments Topics must, for example, not be too generic The same topics must not be given every year and assignments with similar topics must not be easily found on the internet

- Use of the internet: As the internet is a public domain, students perceive information on the internet as free to use The internet has made plagiarism easier You can cut and paste information directly into word processed documents, because complete essays, assignments and articles can be downloaded either for free

or for a fee (Lathrop & Foss 2000: 22-24)

In conclusion, there are many factors that cause student plagiarism However the most important thing is that students sometimes have no sense of what they are allowed or not allowed to do They are not well-prepared about academic writing skills or time management skills They may feel that they have too many assignments to do and if these assignments are poorly designed, students tend to plagiarize when the time is at due Moreover, education upbringing also plays a key

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role In some countries, especially Asian countries, rote-learning are encouraged Students are expected to learn by heart the knowledge from text books The more accurately a student can recall information, the better (s)he is assessed to be It is this attitude that leads to students’ restricted consciousness of plagiarism

1.1.5 Penalty for student plagiarism

Punishments for students who plagiarize range from failing grades on individual assignments to flunking an entire course - or worse Some schools have revoked degrees from people whose plagiarism came to light months or years after they graduated At other schools – especially those with strict honor codes – plagiarism can be grounds for suspension or expulsion

Penalty for act of plagiarism also varies among univeristies or countries Monash Univeristy in Australia states that punishments will depend on whether students plagiarize intentionally or unintentionally For them intentional plagiarism is defined as cheating and unintentional plagiarism is defined as “academic misdemeanor.” So if a student unintends to plagiarize, a warning will be given (Monash University, 2007 cited in Wendy, 2008: 65)

Birmingham University, on the other hand, gives very detailed information about how cases of plagiarism are both decided and also penalized The policy of the school assists teachers to decide how serious the case of plagiarism is by quantifying the amount of plagiarism in the student’s work: “serious” is calculated

as 10 percent of the complete work; “moderate” is calculated between 5 and 10 percent and “slight” is where less than 5 percent of the total work has been plagiarized Once that calculation is complete, the penalty for the offense will automatically follow the formula (Wendy, 2008: 65-66)

In Vietnam, Laws on Intellectual Property have been applied to protect authorships and copyrights According to this law, penalties for acts of plagiarism depend on the level of seriousness Plagiarists can get the caution, monetary fine or even be criminally handed

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In universities or colleges, for small assignments, plagiarists will be graded zero for proportions that plagiarism occurs If repeated, students will be suspended or expelled from school For graduated papers, M.A thesis or other scientific papers, if plagiarism happens, these papers will not be approved

More seriously is the case of Hoang Xuan Que, a lecturer in a famous university (National Economics University) In his Doctoral thesis, he had used 30.2% thesis paper of Dr Mai Xuan Que (52.9/159 pages) without indicating the original author

in his references Some of his paragraphs repeated exactly the source text, leaving the quotation marks When his case came out the light, Vietnamese Ministry of Education and training had revoked his degree after ten years of his graduation

To sum up, most universities and colleges have a range of penalties from warnings, reprimands, failure of the piece of assessment under review, failure of the unit or subject in which the plagiarism occurred, suspension from study for a period of time, monetary fine or expulsion from the university No matter what plagiarism each university defines as, it is cclearly that this unethical behaviour needs to be stamped out to build a healthy academic environment

1.2 Review previous studies

Recently, there have been numerous studies carried out in order to investigate the incidences of plagiarism among college students These studies also indicated the continuous growth in student plagiarism Most of the studies agree that students are well-aware of plagiarism as an unaccepted practice or a wrongful act in academic writing In his servey, David R Neumann (2002) indicated that nearly 90 percent of students strongly view major acts of plagiarism as unethical In Far East educational settings the concept of plagiarism is also related to an immoral practice or act of rob

or steal someone’s writing

However, recent studies also claim that this misconduct behaviour is becoming a serious problem among universities and that students plagiarized their work in a substantial amount McCabe (2005), in a study of 50,000 undergraduate students on more than 60 US campuses, found that 70 percent admitted to

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cheating in some form Other recent studies have noted the incidence of cheating

at university ranging from 50 percent of students to around 75 percent (Park 2003) This continuing of student plagiarism is blamed for some factors both subjective and objective causes Some western reseachers have implied Asians students tend to plagiarize more often than their western counterparts Besides, cultural factors, for them, play as the key role in contributing plagiarism in these Asian countries To support, Yamada (2003: 252) emphasizes differences in cultural perceptions of the importance of acknowledging sources of information when taking a written assignment as the root causing international student to involve into plagiarism However, Ha (2006: 77), Thao Doan (2012: 30) and Liu (2005: 235) fought against this viewpoint by saying that “Western academics may rush to accuse overseas students” They then gave some examples to illustrate their arguments that copying from other’s work is punished heavily in their countries However, they also state that it is different in educational upbringing that causes the significant rates of accidential plagiarists in those countries It is not surprising to catch Vietnamese students making mistakes in referencing when taking a written assignment in western academic settings Because in Vietnam, students just acknowledge the the research by adding the name of the author, not providing the year of publication and the publishers Furthermore, in Vietnamese education, students are not taught critical thinking, and how to acknowledge others’ ideas; therefore, they often copy others’ ideas without knowing that is plagiarism Besides, Vietnamese students do not aware the danger of plagiarism

So, how can we solve this problem? To address this Dujsik (2002: 24) recommended four practical approaches which include setting up a serious penalty

so that students will have to follow the right procedure and obey the rules, raising students’ awareness of plagiarism by discussing the issue in details, monitoring students’ writing process by assigning them to do the writing task at various steps, and equipping students with citation skills by teaching them to quote, paraphrase and summarize Sherman (1991: 194 – 195), on the other hand, offers a very

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interesting method – a cultural syllabus, in which “students will not have to eradicate their own habits of thought and expression, but will be adding new patterns to their intellectual repertoire and producing the kind of speech appropriate

to the immediate environment.”

To sum up, the issue of plagiarism is interestingly discussed many studies and among researchers around the world Students plagiarize in different ways varying from unintentional type such as giving verbatim answer, rote-learning for exams, borrowing others’ words and ideas without acknowledging the source, to intentionally stealing others’ papers and treat them as their own The causes for this phenomenon also vary from country to country Asian students plagiarize because they lack awareness of the notion of plagiarism, citation skills and teacher monitoring during the writing process, whereas Italian students (Sherman, 1991:

192 – 193) do so because they fail to distinguish fact from opinion, to develop argument or just because they want to maintain their “bella figura”

However, the problem of plagiarism, to some extent, is grey theory in Vietnam There are not many researches or studies taken to explore this misconduct academic Some studies just focused on the students’ awareness, perception or attitude towards plagiarism or the results contributing this phenomenon What’s more, most of these studies are carried out among oversea Vietnamese Students where students are more or less affected by Western culture in writing academic So these theories or results are quite general and difficult to adapt effectively in Vietnamese university settings Attempting to paint a small picture related to this

phenomenon in Vietnam, I would like to carry the minor study, namely “An investigation into the state of plagiarism in writing assignments among third-year students majored in English in one of Vietnamese Universities and some preventive teaching strategies”, hoping that it can contribute some useful information for EFL

teachers in general, and my teaching profession in particular

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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This chapter discusses the methodology used to investigate the state off plagiarism among students There are four main parts in this chapter: the research questions, the approach adopted the methods of collecting data, the data collection procedure (timeline), and data analysis methods

2.1 Research questions:

The present study attempts to investigate the awareness of students and teachers of plagiarism, the state of plagiarism among students majoring in English In the light

of literature, this study aimed to highlight the following research questions:

1 What is students’ awareness of plagiarism at the university?

2 What are some common forms of plagiarism committed by university students?

3 What are some ways to raise awareness of plagiarism among students?

4 What are some preventative teaching strategies in order to reduce plagiarism among students?

2.2 Research methodology

Qualitative & quantitative methods are both used to find answers to the research questions above According to Morse, Janice M (2003: 189), “Using more than one research within a research program, we are able to obtain a more complete picture

of human behavior and experience Thus we are better able to … achieve our research goals more quickly.” Such a mixed method provides a detailed and comprehensive picture about what is being investigated Qualitative and quantitative data will be collected with discourse analysis and questionnaires correspondingly

Survey questionnaires and discourse analysis are the two main instruments to collect the data The data from the discourse analysis are of great assistance to ensure the validity of the information gathered from the survey questionnaire The discourse analysis was done through analyzing students’ essays The criteria judging the seriousness of plagiarism was bases on the policies towards plagiarism

of Birmingham University cited in Wendy’s (2008: 64-65) Thanks to these, the

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result is more reliable and helps the researcher investigate the state of student plagiarism clearly and suggest some preventative teaching methods more easily 2.2.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are considered to be useful for exploration and confirmation One of the strengths of questionnaires is measuring attitudes and eliciting participants’ ways of thinking “Questionnaire was opted with consideration for its apparent multi-advantage and particular suitability for quantitative research” (Dörnyei, 2003) In this study, questionnaires were designed to investigate students’ awareness of plagiarism and factors hind students’ misbehavior

2.2.1.1 The questionnaire for the students

All questions were written in English The questionnaires were also piloted with the help of five students before delivering to the large number The questionnaires are included 12 closed questions At the end of the questionnaire, students have a chance to mention their own ideas and viewpoints on plagiarism through an open question These are focused on discovering factors that hinder students’ performance in their writing assignments (question no 1, 2), their awareness of plagiarism (question no 3, 4, 5), the main forms of plagiarism committed by students (question no 7), level of seriousness of student plagiarism (question no 8), the reasons for their plagiarism (question no 9,), their comments on ways to limit plagiarism among students (question no 10, 11, 12)

2.2.1.2 The questionnaire for the teachers

With the help of three teachers for doing piloted questionnaire, the researcher could fully complete the questions The questionnaire for teachers is written in English There are 12 closed questions in this questionnaire The last question is an open question Teachers can share their different ideas and views on plagiarism In general, all questions are aimed at finding out the teachers’ comments on students’ difficulties in writing assignments (question no 1, 2), students’ awareness of plagiarism (question no 3, 4, 5, 6), the main forms of plagiarism committed by students (question no 7), level of seriousness of student plagiarism (question no 8),

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reasons for student plagiarism (question no 9), and suggestions to limit plagiarism among students (question no 10, 11, 12)

2.2.2 Discourse analysis: analysis of students’ essays

In order to check the reliability of data collected from the questionnaire and hopefully to find out what has not been done through the questionnaire, the researcher attempted to test the extent of plagiarism among students through analyzing their essays The researcher chose the samples randomly among the students given questionnaires 10 students were asked to finish their small assignments about the topic they were free to choose They were encouraged to write with their own words as many as possible Their essays would be finished in electronic form Google search was used as the main tool for checking the sources related to plagiarized works The sources and the submitted works were compared through the application of Microsoft Office Word 2007 software The degree of seriousness of plagiarism was based on Birmingham University’s policies related to plagiarism: serious, moderate and slight plagiarisms (as mentioned in part 1.5) 2.3 Data collection procedure

2.3.1 The setting of the study

The study was conducted at The National Economics University (NEU), a leading university in Vietnam Within the span of a half of a century of its establishment and development, it has recorded a lot of great achievements and received many noble tittles awarded by the Party and the Government

Living and studying in one of the national key universities of Vietnam, teachers and students of FLF have great chances of accessing advanced technology, and international cooperation training programs It means that students and teachers have opportunities to express their knowledge, their potential modern methods and educational environment They, from the first time to enter the university, are clearly warned that academic integrity, especially plagiarism, is forbidden

The NEU Student Handbook specifically delineates what constitutes academic integrity Students’ “activities and attitudes should be consistent with high academic

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standards, and should be in keeping with the philosophy and mission of the university They must be willing to observe high standards of intellectual integrity, respecting knowledge and practice academic honesty” (NEU, 2012) Values violations are subdivided into five major areas: cheating in the exam, asking someone to take the exam, take the exam for someone else, copying other’s assignment, thesis paper, organizing taking the exam, assignment, thesis paper for someone else (NEU, 2012) In each written syllabus, plagiarism is re-stated as a cheat action to void On orientation meetings, the teachers remind students of plagiarism and warn them of the violation of this action

2.3.2 Participants’ background information

The study was carried out with the participation of 12 teachers and 60 third – year students who major in English

2.3.2.1 The teachers

12 teachers of FLF of NEU were selected to be informants Most of them graduated from the English Department of the top universities in Vietnam Some of them got their MA and PhD from universities abroad The oldest teacher has got more than

20 years of experience of teaching English The youngest teacher has been teaching English for 5 years Most of them have had experience in teaching English

2.3.2.2 The students

60 third – year students majoring in English were chosen for the study They have at least three years of training in university environment They; therefore, have quite good knowledge of writing in English They were also taught about academic writing in their second year and had done some writing assignments by that time However, their levels of English proficiency vary from individual to individual 2.3.3 Procedure

The process of collecting data was carried out in the following phases

First, 60 copies of questionnaires written in English were distributed to 60 third – year students of Foreign Language Faculty and received back The students were all

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willing to cooperate with the researcher and complete all the questions in the questionnaire 100% of students gave their answered questionnaire back

Second, 12 soft copies of questionnaires written in English were sent to 12 teachers

of the faculty via email and they were all completed and replied

To ensure full concentration, adequate time to complete the questionnaires and effective response, permission to use lecture time to administer questionnaires was gained from the lecturers in the FLF

The survey was conducted in September 2013 A brief introduction to the study was given to students outlining the objectives of the study and assuring anonymity Consent of students was obtained verbally To increase the validity of the study, students were asked not to mention their names, student identification numbers or the name of the higher education institution All the students participated voluntarily

Third, in order to investigate the forms of plagiarism among students, with the big help of teachers from the university, the researcher has 10 students (chosen randomly among 60 students in the survey) write a small study with a topic they are free to choose within two month The study was conducted from the early June to the end of July

2.4 Data analytical units

The data from questionnaire were coded into the computer and analyzed by using the software Microsoft Office Excel Descriptive statistics, including frequencies, reasons, sources of plagiarism, standard deviations and percentages, were implemented in order to investigate the state of student plagiarism Besides, information from students’ essay analysis was also synthesized

The findings of this research are presented in tables and graphical forms as bar and tables present data in an easy to understand format Based on the collected data, some factors related to students’ awareness of plagiarism, forms of plagiarism committed by students, reasons for student plagiarism Thanks to these findings, some recommendations for preventative teaching strategies are given

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter data collected from survey questionnaires and students’ writing analysis are analyzes in order to explore the insight of student plagiarism in performing their assignments: difficulties in taking a writing assignment, forms of plagiarism students committed, reasons why they plagiarized, students’ awareness

on plagiarism and university’s policies On the basic of these findings, some suggestions are made on preventative teaching strategies in order to limit this misconduct behavior

3.1 The difficulties students encounter when taking a writing assignment

3.1.1 Difficulties in doing a writing assignment

3.1.1.1 Too many written assignments

When being asked to state the frequency of students’ doing writing assignments, both students and teachers share that written assignments are used quite often for evaluating students’ writing progress at the university Among them, forty – five percent of students indicate that they often have to write assignments on their courses, whereas 28.33% students say they do the task very often Sixteen students accounting for 26.67% sometimes have their assignments finished in written form

These figures match with teachers’ answers All teachers say their students have to finish several writing assignments during their courses More than half of them claim that students do this task frequently Other 25 % teachers considered written forms of assignments being so effective a method that they use it very often Only 16.67% teachers sometimes use writing assignments as tools of evaluating their

Figure 1: Frequency of students having an assignment

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students’ progress From the facts above, it can be inferred that, students have experienced in writing assignments many times They; therefore, have certain difficulty in completing all these assignments

3.1.1.2 Difficulties while writing assignments

As can be seen from the chart, among four listed issue, lack of resources seems to

be students’ most difficulty in writing assignments Up to 69% teachers and students blame it as the core factor preventing students from successfully performing their writing This so high percentage may be resulted from the fact that traditionally, for Vietnamese students, writing an assignment, in fact, is to gather what have written by others before Therefore, having poor manipulating supporting information skills, they find it difficult to decide what information should be included or excluded in their assignment Besides, lack of ideas is another major difficulty of most students (60%) For them, their limited ability in expressing their thinking in English might keep them from working out their best assignments

With a little lower percentage, nearly half of the participants (48%) state that students often meet problems about the content of the assignment These students might be confused about how to outline their assignment or how to develop it, what should be added into their assignment and so on Lastly, task challenges seem to be not students’ main difficulty, because up to 65% respondents consider it as low or not a difficulty From this fact, it can infer that writing tasks are often well-prepared

by teachers They meet students’ levels of language development, so they do not

Figure 2: Students’ difficulties in writing an assignment

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bother them Moreover, 5 students (8.33%) admit that the inadequate time is also their other main difficulty Because the time dues short, it is a challenge for them to finish their writing in their most perfect way

3.1.2 Students’ awareness of plagiarism

3.1.2.1 Plagiarism policy

More than half of students with the percentage of 52 % say that they know about plagiarism through oral policy Twenty percent of students indicate that there is an existence of a written policy for dealing with plagiarism These figures fit to teachers’ answers that all of them have ever informed their students about plagiarism policy in either oral or written forms 58.33% teachers said that they included the policy against plagiarism into their syllabi This seems to be the best way that students can easily follow and practice the rules For other 41.67% teachers, orally informing students about plagiarism will help them quickly be accustomed to its definition, notions and penalty

However, there are still more than a quarter of students (28%) who know nothing about plagiarism at their university or are uncertain of whether they plagiarize or not Sadly, this policy is clearly stated in the website of the university and in students’ handbooks delivered for the students on their first day entering the university This illustrates the point that many students do not take enough care of teachers’ instructions in class as well as of what they are allowed and not allowed to

do at university Or the policy on how to deal with plagiarism is not entirely clear to

Figure 3: Awareness of plagiarism policy

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the students As a result, this ignorant attitude of students may contribute to their misbehaviors in writing academically

3.1.2.2 Penalty for act of plagiarism

According to the chart, most of plagiarized works (45% for students and 50% for teachers) will receive a zero The other 31.67% students and 25% teachers agree that warning will be given to a plagiarist for the first time and if the offence is not really serious Nearly ten percent of students and other 25% teachers maintain that failing grade will be given in the subject where plagiarism occurs More seriously, for 6.67% students, suspension in one year is the highest punishment for plagiarists

Expulsion will not be applied for plagiarism engagement in the university In contrast, some teachers say that one year of suspension will be awarded for students who plagiarize in two or more times with serious quantity or quality Especially, they further state that student will be suspended in one year if he/she copies or has other do his/her final assignment, thesis paper for the first time, and expelled for the second time

From the results above, it can be concluded that plagiarism policy is still unclear to students Their vague awareness of university penalty may lead them to commit the fraud to some extent The better way to improve the situation is that penalty needs

Figure 4: Plagiarism penalty

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to be openly discussed among colleagues and forced rigorously with sound judgments

3.1.2.3 Attitude towards plagiarism at the university

As shown in the figure, a half of students admit that plagiarism is somewhat common at their university 17 other students say that it is not very common here Only 10 respondents vote for rarely having an act of plagiarizing at the university Making up the smallest percentage (5 %), only 3 students vote for the answer “very common”

Interestingly, these findings do not support the results from teachers’ answers No comments are given by the teachers to the issues of very common or somewhat common Up to 58.33% teachers share that plagiarism rarely occurred at their university whereas other 33.33% state that it was not common in their university environment It appears the conclusion that plagiarism is under good control here

3.1.2.4 Experience of plagiarism incidences

As can be seen from the chart, all teachers have seen signs of plagiarism into their students’ writing Among them, 41.67% respondents have witnessed different forms

of plagiarism among students for 6 to 10 times 33.33% teachers have caught students plagiarize for more than 10 times Other teachers have experienced to one

to five plagiarists These findings are closely related to students’ viewpoints Nearly half of students (46.67%) have caught six to ten plagiarists, 22 others (36.67%) have seen one to five of their classmates plagiarize in their writing assignment, and

Figure 5: Attitude towards plagiarism at the university