Academic plagiarism awareness and practice among post graduates at faculty of english linguistics literature university of social sciences and humanities hcm

ABSTRACT This study aimed to have a deep insight into the awareness of students taking part in Master’s Program in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Ho Chi Minh University of Soc

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

ACADEMIC PLAGIARISM: AWARENESS AND PRACTICE AMONG POST-GRADUATES AT

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS &

LITERATURE - UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU THU, PhD

HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 31st 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to those people who provided me with valuable advice and enthusiastic supports during the time I worked on this thesis

I would like to express my genuine appreciation and grateful thanks to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, who gave me practical guidance Under her supervision, I became more independent, raised my sense of initiative, and developed

my thinking to a certain extent in the research project To my way of thinking, fortune smiled on me when I was supervised by Dr Kieu Thu, embracing her words of wisdom with a wealth of experience

I would like to express my sincere thanks towards the alumni in the master program, my classmates who enthusiastically participated in my study Their true reflection on the past experience was valuable data for my study To those who took part in the data collection procedure, I owe them a great debt of gratitude

Ho Chi Minh City, July 31st , 2018

Nguyễn Đặng Phương Thảo

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Đặng Phương Thảo, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use ofMaster’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of the theses

Ho Chi Minh City, July 31st, 2018

Nguyễn Đặng Phương Thảo

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

DECLARATION ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES vii

ABSTRACT ix

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Research aims 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the thesis 3

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Nature of plagiarism 5

2.1.1 Definition 5

2.1.2 Types of plagiarism 7

2.2 Factors relating to plagiarism in academic writing 10

2.2.1 Students’ perception 11

2.2.2 Cultural aspect 12

2.2.3 University policies 14

2.2.4 Attitudes towards learning 15

2.2.5 Personal traits causing plagiarism in academic writing 15

2.2.5.1 Problems with language proficiency and academic writing conventions 15

2.2.5.2 Poor time management and pressure to get high grades 16

2.2.6 Plagiarism in academic writing shown in plagiarist tactics 18

2.3 Conceptual framework 19

2.4 Summary 19

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research questions 20

3.2 Research design 20

3.3 Research context 20

3.4 Participants 21

3.5 Research instruments 21

3.5.1 Questionnaire on students’ awareness about plagiarism 21

3.5.2 Questionnaire on students’ use of cheating writing tactics 22

3.6 Data collection procedure 23

3.7 Data analysis procedure 23

3.7.1 Piloting the questionnaire 23

3.7.2 Administering the questionnaire 23

3.8 Summary 23

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS 24

4.1 Data analysis 24

4.1.1 Students’ awareness of plagiarism in academic writing 26

4.1.2 Students’ adaptation of plagiarism forms 32

4.2 Discussion of the results 42

4.2.1 Students’ awareness of plagiarism in academic writing 42

4.2.2 Students’ use of forms of plagiarism and the reasons why 48

4.3 Summary 51

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 51

5.1 Conclusion 51

5.2 Limitations of the study 54

5.3 Pedagogical implications 54

5.4 Recommendation for further study 55

REFERENCES 56

APPENDICES 62

APPENDIX A Questionnaire on students’ awareness about plagiarism 62

APPENDIX B Questionnaire on students’ use of cheating writing tactics 67

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

List of Tables

Table 4.1a: Reliability Statistic 25

Table 4.1.1a Students’ understanding of plagiarism 27

Table 4.1.1b Students’ experience in writing academic paper 27

Table 4.1.1c Students’ awareness about policies towards plagiarism and course requirements 28

Table 4.1.1d The pressure on students’ learning process 30

Table 4.1.1d Students’ opinion on definition and causes of academic plagiarism 31

Table 4.1.1e Students’ self-discipline and their attitude towards academic integrity 32

Table 4.1.1d Students’ opinion on definition and causes of academic plagiarism 33

List of Figures Figure 2.3a Factors leading to academic plagiarism 19

Figure 2.3b Plagiarist behaviors 34

Figure 4.1.2a Submitting the same paper for more than one course 34

Figure 4.1.2b Changing dates of old research to make them look more up-to-date 34

Figure 4.1.2c Paraphrasing other people’s work without acknowledging the original author 35

Figure 4.1.2d Inventing references or bibliography 35

Figure 4.1.2e Copying the authors’ idea rather than reflecting on existing theory from previous research 36

Figure 4.1.2f Submitting someone else’s work with their permission 36

Figure 4.1.2g Putting a researcher’s name next to their own ideas 36

Figure 4.1.2h Copying without acknowledging the source 36

Figure 4.1.2i Submitting the same paper for more than one course 37

Figure 4.1.2i Paraphrasing without acknowledging the original author 37

Figure 4.1.2k Inventing data 38

Figure 4.1.2l Submitting written assignments from a source on the Internet 38

Figure 4.1.2m Chosing an unpopular essay topic 39

Figure 4.1.2n Avoiding writing anything controversial 39

Figure 4.1.2o Putting words from other articles into one’s own paper without citing the source 40

Figure 4.1.2n Avoiding writing anything controversial 40

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to have a deep insight into the awareness of students taking part in Master’s Program in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities about plagiarism in academic writing as well as how they employed plagiarist forms in their real practice of learning process The study was developed basing on the synthesis and analysis of previous theory presented in studies done by researches from a diversity of fields of study and countries Data were collected through a questionnaire completed by 57 former graduate students of the MA program in the period 2014-2016 The definition of plagiarism was understood by almost all of the students in Post-graduate As a result, they had a strong anti-attitude towards plagiarism in learning environment Having taken part in research activities also helped them practice the required skills in order to avoid plagiarism During their learning, the students had to face external and internal pressure as these were among the factors that could lead to the act of committing plagiarism With the excuse of not having enough knowledge in language structure and they did not have enough time to strictly follow academic writing conventions, the students admitted to sometimes commit some of the plagiarist behaviors in order to fulfill their study

Key words: plagiarism, academic writing, cheating behaviors

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter states the background, rationales of the study, as well as the aims, research questions that the current study sought for the answer, scope of the study as well as organization of the whole thesis

1.1 Background to the study

In terms of second-language (L2) writing, research on the topic of plagiarism in academic fields has been done since the mid-1980s (Pecorari D & Petrić B., 2014) Studies on the issue of plagiarism have been deputed since the mid-1980s which results in a broad and multidisciplinary field of study about the phenomenon defined as “plagiarism is the representation of another person's work as the student's own, either by extensive unacknowledged quotation, paraphrasing or direct copying.” (University of Hertfordshire Policies and Regulations) Within the last two decades the subject of academic integrity has received attention from authors in all fields of academic learning Mello, J A (2000) considered plagiarism as a professional ethic Other searches have also been done about the topic of unintentional plagiarism (Brown & Murphy, 1989), plagiarism and the Internet (Harris, 2002) or identifying students who are likely to plagiarize (Lester & Diekhoff, 2002), describing of frequency and reasons causing plagiarism to happen ( Roig & DeTommaso, 1996) It has, as a consequence, proven a point that students’ awareness and effort to avoid plagiarism which needs to be emphasized to keep academic integrity has received attention by both researchers and instructors, especially in writing where plagiarism is likely to happen in different forms and cases

Results from previous studies have indicated the act of plagiarism is a result of many factors including students’ perceptions, troubling attitudes towards plagiarism, their lack of knowledge on what constituted plagiarism and Faculty's attitudes on this issue Moreover, Manar & Shameem (2014) found out another reason for copying someone else’s work without citing is that there is a pressure in completing assignments and achieving good grades in the lack of time Taking all of the above mentioned ideas into account, the present study is conducted in order to have a deep look at students’ understanding of the key terms plagiarism as well as the difficulties that may lead them to ignore the principles of academic integrity in the process of conducting academic paper

1.2 Research aims

The current study aims at figuring out the students’ awareness about plagiarism in academic writing, especially Post-Graduate students who are supposed to do research a lot and write academic paper so as to finish their courses Besides, students are likely to have their own difficulties when trying to follow guidelines of how to avoid plagiarism in writing This study will try to find out the problems occurring during the time students doing their research so that there could be solutions to give them a helping hand in producing qualified results without the fault of plagiarism

1.3 Research questions

To be specific, this study seeks the answer to the following questions:

1 What is the awareness of post-graduate students about plagiarism in academic writing?

2 How often do Post-Graduate students at Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, Hồ Chí Minh city University of Social Sciences and Humanities use cheating strategies during their study?

1.4 Significance of the study

The issue of plagiarism in academic has received attention from researchers, scholars among universities and institutions around the world over the past decade (Xin Guo, 2011) However, not many studies have been done on the topic of Vietnamese students’ awareness on plagiarism and their practice in learning because Vietnam has different assessment system and cultural values compared to Western countries as “many researchers have pointed out that students of different cultures have different understanding of plagiarism” (Ummul K , Kobra M., and Grace A., 2012) which meant in Vietnamese students’ mind, plagiarism in academic writing might not be the same compared to other students in Western countries The current study’s result contributed a deeper insight into how plagiarism is understood by Vietnamese students and thus provided lecturers, supervisors and administrations with ideas and suggestions for raising students’ awareness about plagiarism in academic writing in order to creat a serious academic learning environment

Moreover, recently students in Vietnam are well-equipped with high tech gadgets which both facilitate them in doing research and bring them nearer to the risk of committing plagiarism As Abdolmohammadi & Baker (2007) mentioned that plagiarism, whether committed intentionally or unintentionally, is likely to hinder students’ ability to extract meaning from the information they read

and limit their critical thinking which is one of the most necessary ability for researchers to come up with new findings basing on existing theory from previous work It is the motivation for this paper to

be conducted in order to find out students’ practice in keeping academic integrity so that instructors and administrators would be provided with a clear picture of the situation and have strategies to prevent plagiarism in academic writing to happen in any cases

1.5 Scope of the study

The present study focused on finding out students’ perception about plagiarism and how the students employed plagiarism forms during the time they pursuit their master program in TESOL courses undertaken at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City The participants of the study were limited to only Post-graduates of the course 2014 which could likely cause certain limitation to the findings of the study Besides, the study only provide a general view on students’ opinions towards plagiarism by analyzing quantitative data collected through the use of questionnaires designed using statements with 5-point Likert scale which participants responded to the items only by indicating their agreement or disagreement Thus, a deeper look into students’ practice in their writing and their awareness of plagiarism in academic writing were not provided

1.6 Organization of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters: (1) Introduction, (2) Literature review, (3) Methodology, (4) Results and Discussions (5) Conclusion

Chapter 1 presents the background of plagiarism in academic writing found in previous researches, the aims, research questions, the significance and scope of the study, and the organization

of the whole thesis

Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature together with related studies, providing background knowledge and constructing the theoretical framework for the study into students’ awareness about plagiarism in doing academic writing Information on previous studies’ results is presented for later comparison with research findings

Chapter 3 describes the research methodology in detail as how the research questions on students’ awareness about plagiarism and how they deal with plagiarism forms would be found basing

on a description of research design, research participants, research instruments, data collection, and statistical method

Chapter 4 presents data analyses and discussions on the findings drawn from the instruments used in the study addressing the research questions on students’ awareness of plagiarism and how plagiarism forms were used during the time their study at Post-graduate level

Chapter 5 provides a summary of major findings found through analysis of research results discussed previously in chapter 4, implications, limitations of the study, and recommendations for further studies are revealed

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Conducting a research paper requires students to read and reflect on the related materials to have

a credible theoretical foundation for their study It is highly important not to violate conventions in academic writing, especially plagiarism However, plagiarism has recently become popular in academic context, especially in social sciences field in which most of the studies are based on theories

In order to have a clear understanding about the theories relating to plagiarism and previous studies conducted about the current topic, this chapter includes (1) definitions and (2) review of related literatures

2.1 Nature of plagiarism

2.1.1 Definition

Plagiarism as failure to obey academic writing conventions

Plagiarism, according to Zhang (2016), is “primarily an ethical issue” which is defined by The Publication Ethics Committee of WAME (World Association Medicine Editors) as

“Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic).”

The definition mentioned above shared the same point with Harvard University’s statement of plagiarism which defined plagiarism as “In academic writing, it is considered plagiarism to draw any idea or any language from someone else without adequately crediting that source in your paper.” Bailey (2013) also supported this view by stating that plagiarism is considered as a kind of theft or an academic crime because “ideas or words are seen as private property belonging to the person who first thought or wrote them.” Sally Morris et al said that the elements that could easily be plagiarized include text, figures, tables, and even ideas In more serious cases which involved a copyright violation

as well as ethical misconduct, the author used a whole entity, for example: an entire article, a figure, a table, or a dataset, without attribution or permission

Plagiarism under linguistic view

According to linguistic view, plagiarism in academic writing is also an act of failure in language use as plagiarism is not committed until some else’s work or ideas are taken by the writer and claimed

as his or her own words Hence, plagiarism is basically a kind of linguistic phenomenon

Whether viewed upon as linguistic aspect or a students’ lack of knowledge and practice on writing conventions, the need of keeping academic integrity is crucial as “taking credit for anyone else’s work

is stealing, and it is unacceptable in all academic situations, whether you do it intentionally or by accident”, Zhang (2016)

Moreover, plagiarism is a dynamic and multi-layered phenomenon (Russikoff et al., 2003) Wang (2008) also said that plagiarism happened in many academic circumstances and background That is the explanation for the ideas of Franklyn-Stokes & Newstead, (1995); Ashworth, Freewood

& Macdonald, (2003); Roig, (2001) who, in their definitions, suggested that the understanding of plagiarism is perceived differently by different parties like institutions, academics, students and researchers

To sum up, Wang (2008) pointed out that most definitions share one common element which is

“plagiarism is the act of using another author’s work without citation” and thus claiming others’ ideas

or words as one’s own work

2.1.2 Types of plagiarism

Plagiarism is also classified into various types and thus students who are not fully aware of them commit plagiarism easily

Sham, Verbatim and Purloin

According to Walker (2010), there are three types of plagiarism namely “Sham which is defined as

“citing a source for the material but presenting it as own paraphrase when it is copied verbatim”, Verbatim which is “copying material verbatim without citing the source” and Purloin a kind of

“copying from a classmate’s assignment or that of a student previously enrolled in the class (p 45)” In

terms of recognizing plagiarism among students’ work, Serene (2010) said that word-for-word plagiarism is mostly punished as it is the easiest to detect while plagiarism of authorship receives the least attention as it is hard to detect and prove

Minor versus Major plagiarism

Concerning the degree of seriousness of copying of sources into one’s own work ranging from

“sloppy paraphrasing” to “verbatim transcription with no crediting of the source” (Larkham & Manns,

2002, p.340), plagiarism is classified into minor and major plagiarism Roger (2005) has gathered certain activities that could contribute to minor plagiarism such as “cutting and pasting relatively small amounts of material from web pages without acknowledgement (Davis, 2000), the reproduction of a sentence or two without quotation marks and without a citation (Standler, 2000), paraphrasing without references, and inventing fictitious references (Bjorklund & Wenestam (1999).” Major plagiarism, according to Standler (2000) occurs when ‘a significant fraction of the entire work was written by someone else’ (p 2) However, there is no legal distinction between major and minor forms of plagiarism, Standler (2000)

Intentional and Unintentional plagiarism

Plagiarism is also classified into two types—intentional and unintentional The author who wants

to “mislead the reader” is assumed as committing intentional plagiarism In contrast, students who commit unintentional plagiarism do not have the intention to deceive the readers as it mainly happens when “graduate students may not have received explicit instruction in paraphrasing, lack an understanding of what constitutes plagiarism or are unaware of proper citation methods”(Gilmore et al

2010, p 15) Normally, the word “plagiarism” itself has the negative meaning as being intentional However, Lisa (2012) observed that plagiarism in students’ writing is not always an unethical behavior because students with poor practice in academic writing could likely commit unintentional plagiarism (Devlin & Gray (2007) In its definitions of academic dishonesty, the Special Committee

on Academic Dishonesty in Research of the Commission of Inquiry on Science and Technology, Japan (2006, p 12) agreed that there is no latitude for unintentional plagiarism

However, it is still debatable whether cases in which students who did not commit plagiarism

on purpose should be considered as seriously as those commit plagiarism intentionally Pecorari (2003) and Wheeler (2009) have noted that students' inability to write with proper citations and

paraphrases, it is likely that plagiarism occurs because the students’ writing ability has not been fully developed, which is defined as patchwriting In Simon Fraser University (2013)’s definition, patchwriting is understood as a new passage which is paraphrased in a way that still leaves it too similar to the original text and it is also considered as plagiarism The writer may rely on the original text even though there is an attempt to paraphrase the ideas by deleting a few words, changing word’s order, substituting synonyms and even changing the grammatical structure of the sentences within the text According to Stacy & Ghada (2013) scholars consider patchwriting as a necessary stage of development for students, which is a part of their learning to write, for lower-proficiency learners Moreover, patchwriting happens mainly because of writers’ inexperience in blending the source idea with his or her writing context (Deckert, 1993) As mentioned above, unintentional plagiarism happens when students’ linguistic knowledge has not fully developed The problem would then be solved with proper training in academic writing skills in general and students’ ability to cite sources and following academic integrity rules

Ten types of most serious and common plagiarism

iThenticate, the leading provider of professional plagiarism detection and prevention technology,has conducted a survey in 2016 in order to find out the commonness and severity of ten types of plagiarism in scientific research The first kind of plagiarism that commonly happened and perceived

by the participants as the most serious type is “secondary source” which happened when the researcher used a secondary source but only cited the primary sources included in the secondary source Secondary plagiarism showed a lack of gratitude from the author to the owner of the research and also could not state the number of research that had been done to that issue The second type of plagiarism mentioned in the article was Invalid source which is committed when a wrong or non-existent source is cited in the article By using this trick, the author had the intention to lengthen their reference list and consolidate their point of view Thirdly, Duplication is a kind of plagiarism that usually happens in research Authors use their own previous work to re-publish without attribution It is still debatable whether duplication is unethical or not Paraphrasing which is considered as intellectual theft is mentioned as the fourth frequent kind of plagiarism Paraphrasing could be both in form of simple paraphrasing or reusing the whole content but pretending to be making it on their own Another issue ranked as 7.1 over the scale of 10 on commonness in doing research is Repetition which mainly happened within research with similar methodology and the author used the date gained from previous research and did not cite the source The Replication is another issue in academic field when the same

paper was republished in multiple publications but claimed as a new one This could lead to an ethical infraction When a group of researchers cooperated in writing a paper, misleading attribution could likely happen if the main contributors were not given fully credit or authors without any contribution to the work was mentioned Unethical Collaboration also dealt with research done in groups when the results including outcomes, ideas… were applied in another paper without proper citation Besides, Verbatim plagiarism received the degree of seriousness as 8.1/10 although its level of Commonness is only 2.3/10 Verbatim plagiarism happened in two forms as the direct quote was used without quotation marks but still cited properly and secondly, the author claimed someone else’s words as their own without attribution Lastly, Complete plagiarism refers to situations when the whole research was re-summited under the plagiarist’ own name

Ehrich, J., Howard, S J., Mu, C & Bokosmaty, S (2016) defined plagiarism as a highly complex phenomenon and as a consequence is unlikely to find a single excuse for the act of plagiarism

2.2 Factors relating to plagiarism in academic writing

Previous research has agreed on the fact there are a number of factors that can lead to plagiarism According to Powell (2012), the reasons leading to plagiarism in academic writing were classified into two major categories known as situational variables and personal traits Situational variables included factors from outside and personal traits were understood as students’ own orientation during their learning The following part will present the ideas in details

2.2.1 Students’ perception

Student plagiarism happens widely across all academic environment and at all levels of education

so students’ view on plagiarism is an important factor that determine students’ act of following integrity conventions (Gail, 2004) Ashworth, Bannister, and Thorne (1997) found that students were uncertain about what actually is the meaning of the term plagiarism and what made themselves be accused of having plagiarized To many of them, to paraphrase materials without attribution is just a trivial form of cheating (Newstead, Franklyn-Stokes, & Armstead, 1996) It is also proved by data collected by the Center of Academic Integrity (2005) that 77% of the students surveyed thought it was not a serious issue to copy sentences from various sources on the Internet

Moreover, Yang (2014) said that students have a tendency to ignore warnings from their instructor as their likelihood of being caught plagiarizing is low One of the reasons for students’ incorrect perceptions is that they are not doing anything wrong (Snodgrass and Bevevino (2005) Carroll (2002) suggested that as most students are unsure of plagiarism’s forms, in this case they do not plagiarize with the intention to deceive Besides, students also have problems understanding the necessity to follow the rules of citation and attribution as in their learning experience, citing sources is not highly emphasized As a consequence, Boyer Commission (1998) said that students should be provided with inductively instructions of evidence-based learning in which from their very first stage

of entering academic context in which students should be well-informed that they are requested to reflect on previous work in order to finish their project as later on their paper could be duplicated by others

There is a question concerning whether students consider kinds of academic integrity violations such as fabricating a reference list, failing to list all sources in a reference list, falsifying research data,

or misquoting a source intentionally are at the same level of seriousness or not as Carrolls (2007) concluded that students’ perception about plagiarism is not common among universities or institutions Michelle N.C (2017) stated that the students considered misappropriation of others’ work as most serious offense, followed by improper citation or paraphrasing, with unauthorized collaboration seen as the least serious The majority of students, 78.3% of them, paid higher attention to the use of correct referencing and citation so that they could avoid committing plagiarism It is considered by the students that being offered with appropriate insights about academic writing and the related issues that plagiarism cause to academic integrity is highly important (70.8% of the participants agreed) (Van Zyl,

A & Thomas, A., (2015)

According to Ehrich, J., Howard, S J., Mu, C & Bokosmaty, S (2016), comparing between students’ attitudes towards plagiarism and the policies of their learning institution, the former was more permissive and lenient

Results from Ehrich, J., Howard, S J., Mu, C & Bokosmaty, S (2016)’s study which was conducted among 131 Australian and 173 Chinese undergraduate university students about their attitude towards plagiarism indicated that there were distinct cross-cultural differences in students' attitudes towards plagiarism The author, in line with Lei, J., & Hu, G W (2015) explained the reason for their findings as the students’ perception about the conceptualization of plagiarism differed

Regardless of ethnic background, the results highlight undergraduate students' typical lack of

understanding of plagiarism and plagiarist behaviours

2.2.2 Cultural aspect

According to cultural aspect, Sutherland (2005) said that plagiarism needs to be understood in relation to a specific context of academic conventions and environment There could be a difference between perceptions of students from Western countries, in this case refers to US, UK countries and Easten countries such as China or Vietnam as in some countries the act of citing ideas or words from other authors is considered as not necessary Students in cultures which intellectual property is considered as collective may not have the concept of crediting the source as to them sharing someone’s idea is a form of admiration That is the reason why students are confused if they are from outside of the countries that highly appreciate the authors whose materials they borrow Larkham P and Manns S., 2002; Park, 2003 both suggested that this factor must receive a great deal of attention when the issue of student plagiarism in their academic writing including final papers and theses is taken into account

The topic on the phenomenon that “Non-Western” students tend to commit more cases of plagiarism comparing to their peers in “Western” host countries, for example the UK or other Western countries which attract a great deal of oversea students also receives attention from researchers The difference in cultural values among overseas students toward plagiarism could be an explanation as the practices of using and attributing of sources is considered to be culturally specific (e.g., Chanock, 2003a; East, 2005; Howard, 1995; Leask, 2006; Pennycook, 1996) Mc Gowan (2005) confirmed that students need time and proper instruction on conventions in doing research as they are new to the research culture in which knowledge about skills and practice on academic writing is needed in order to avoid unintentional plagiarism

Deckert (1993) found out that Chinese students view “plagiarism to be wrong because it hampers their own learning and disturbs their own sense of personal integrity," this is a contrary to

“American students' concern for author's rights and ownership” (Kroll 1988) The attention about writers’ ownership has not received enough attention in Easten countries, for example Hong Kong students who reported by Deckert (1993) to have "poor performance in detecting plagiarism in the questionnaire items," and are unfamiliar with "the Western conception of plagiarism.", which has become an integral part of North American and Western European academic culture Another

explanation according to cultural differences is that for students from the East their learning approach

is opposite to which in their host countries (Niall & Lucas, 2005) In China, learning and assessment are mainly based on textbook and memorizing which makes them unable to be critical and give their own opinion on materials Niall & Lucas also found out that “overseas students may feel that they cannot improve on what is already written and prefer to use the original text rather than their own” without proper citation and reference which lead to their plagiarism of the original version In Niall & Lucas (2005)’s study, they showed that plagiarist practices are often the outcome of many complex and culturally situated influences and suggested that these differing cultural assumptions educators need to

be appreciated by educators in an ethical manner

However, it is considered as stereotyping that students coming from Asian countries are more likely to plagiarize compared to their counterparts from Western countries (Martin, Rao, and Sloan 2011) Marsh, H W and Martin, A J (2011) suggested that there is no cross-cultural difference in attitude towards plagiarism between these two groups To support this view, Maxwell, Curtis, and Vardanega (2008) even found out that there is a higher rate of plagiarism in Western than Asian countries Ehrich, J., Howard, S J., Mu, C & Bokosmaty, S (2016) stated that it is contentious to conclude that Asian students’ “less serious attitudes toward plagiarism” could lead them to be potential

to academic misconduct

From previous studies, the impact of cultural awareness on students’ plagiarist behavior still need thorough analysis from different views to make sure if students from Asian countries actually bring their former concepts of copying and citing into their new learning environment

2.2.3 University policies

University policies and instructors’ attitude and methods to detect plagiarism also contribute to the diminishing of plagiarism among students Sheard, Dick, Markham, Macdonald, and Walsh (2002) in their survey conducted on 287 students in Monash and Swinburne university in Australia found out that top-down university policies on plagiarism influence current fact of plagiarism as students in Swinburne are more aware of plagiarism because of their university’s severe attitude towards this issue

In an academic environment, it is necessary for anyone who plagiarizes to be penalized because this will be a strict warning for them Callahan, (2006); Jones, (2014); O’Neill & Pfeiffer, (2012) (cited in Jones, Joanne & Spraakman, Gary & Sánchez-Rodríguez, Cristóbal (2014) both share the same point of

view that when cheaters are not punished, it is unfair for those who follow academic integrity as students who cannot prove their true ability gain the same advantages over the others

Besides university policies on plagiarism, the norms on responsible academic writing are directly formed by the lecturers’ attitudes and actions on plagiarism When students are caught for plagiarism, they often refuse to take the responsibility for their wrong doing to themselves (Michael, 2000) and blame their action as not full-informed about policies from university by their instructors (LoCastro & Masuko, 1997) Razera et al (2010) in their study found that Swedish students and teachers prefer to have a clear understanding of the set of policies including detection tools to deal with plagiarism Angelika, Catherine and Melpo (2014) suggested that students should be well informed that their plagiarist behavior will be discovered if universities and academic institutions want to successfully prevent plagiarism Feedback from students who were introduced to the Turnitin® software, which provided instructors with the tools to engage students in the writing process, personalized feedback, and assessed student progress over time, have indicated that the students are less likely to plagiarize if they know they are going to get caught It has been argued, therefore, that having a good understanding of institutional policy reduces the risk of engaging in plagiarism Jordan (2001) found that students who understand institutional policy towards plagiarism are classified as non-

cheaters

To sum up, plagiarism among students’ writings are likely to be caused by their unawareness about university’s policies and instructors’ reaction on dishonesty in assignments handed in by students

2.2.4 Attitudes towards learning

Gullifer, Judith & Tyson, Graham (2010) suggested that in order to understand people’s attitudes or behaviours, it is necessary to have a good understanding of the target population’s perceptions of and attitudes towards the issue Therefore, to better understand student perceptions of plagiarism, it is neccessary to consider both individual student characteristics in broader context relating to their academic learning environment

Academic integration as defined by Kreger and Wrenn (1990); Michie, Glachan and Bray (2001) refers to “how well students fit in to the overall academic environment and their academic life”

Students who have good attitudes towards learning and assessment perceive themselves as well integrated into learning In contrast, disengaged students may feel bored about a particular course or a program find it hard to follow conventions to reference properly in order to avoid being caught of plagiarizing

2.2.5 Personal traits causing plagiarism in academic writing

2.2.5.1 Problems with language proficiency and academic writing conventions

Researchers have discussed on the prevailing norms on unethical writing practices as lack of language proficiency and training in academic writing Su-Hie, Muriatul & Florence (2014) have collected result from studies on plagiarism in academic writing which all agree upon the point that lack

of knowledge of citation and referencing conventions, lack of language proficiency are factors leading

to plagiarism For example, students tend to ignore citation when they have rephrased statements from original source and quotation marks to quote exact words as they think it is not necessary ( Ting, 2013) Along the same line of reasoning, Kobayashi, 2010; Nishigaki, 2012; Shibata, 2011 found out that there is a decrease in the incidence of plagiarism in both Japanese and EFL academic writing by thorough training in academic writing including the notion and related issues of plagiarism at university level in Japan

Moreover, students with incompetent English capacity may misunderstand academic texts In other words, due to their lack of vocabulary or poor writing skills, it is easy for them to commit plagiarism as they find it difficult to paraphrase the original text following conventions (Howard, 1995; Devlin & Gray, 2007; Mahmood, 2009, as cited in Doan) Moreover, fear may arise as students who have poor language competence find it hard to present the ideas keeping convention and “the problem

is that fear is a poor basis for learning.” (Ursula, 2005) Ummul K., Kobra M., and Grace K (2012) concluded in their small scale study that explicit writing instruction on how to produce acceptable writing in a multi-layer academic context in which accurate documentation and un-plagiarized paraphrases are highly appreciated among students who are willing to follow conventions of academic writing in doing research

Besides, time pressure and the convenience of searching for documents from the Internet and lack of motivation are among the factors that lead to students’ plagiarism James et al., (2002)

suggested more factors that can cause unintentional plagiarism among students which included

“students’ limited skill base in academic skills (such as critical analysis, constructing an argument and paraphrasing) and in learning skills (such as time, group, workload and stress management)”

2.2.5.2 Poor time management skill and pressure to get high grades

The pressure from assignments’ due dates or from the desire to have high grade is also a popular motivation of cheating (James, McInnis, & Devlin, 2002; Devlin & Gray 2007; Mahmood, 2009 as cited in Phan, 2006) Phan (2006) explained that under time pressure as students do not have enough time left, it is much more comfortable for them to find materials on the same topic and use them as their own work without referring to the original authors Stacy N., Ghada M (2013) also agreed that time pressure contributed to plagiarist behaviour and suggested students not to wait until the last minute to do assignments because some students turn to plagiarism when they run out of time for writing Together with the development of Internet, just by one simple click, students can find similar research papers with their topics so this abundance could be a temptation for lazy students to borrow works of other authors (James, et al., 2002; Devlin & Gray, 2007)

Another factor that is likely to lead students to plagiarize is the pressure they put on the outcome of their learning process Students with a lax attitude towards plagiarism and whose part time paid employment was interfering with their studies were especially likely to plagiarise Secondly, the impact of low grades on the tendency to plagiarise was substantially higher among students with a lax attitude towards plagiarism issues

There are four different types of student pressures which are identified in the literature summarized by Xin G (2011) First, the attempt to gain academic success is found by Ameen et al.,

1996 to force many students to resort to plagiarism Similarly, Duff (1998) reported that the most common reason for academic misconduct is ‘fear of failure’ as rated by 35% of the students in his sample Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2007) reported that because of increased pressure of not failing

in their studies, students were more likely to plagiarize at the end of a semester than at the beginning Second, Bennett (2005), after surveying 249 UK business students, reported an inverse relationship between students’ financial situation and minor degree of plagiarism which is explained that students with financial burden would have a tendency to take short-cuts in their academic work as they have to spend more hours taking part-time employment Third, students are under great pressure to succeed if they receive financial support from their families This parental pressure is said to lead to fear of failure

that could in turn motivate students to plagiarize (Haines, Diekhoff and LaBeff, 1986) Empirically, Introna, Hayes, Blair and Wood (2003), after sampling 97 students undertaking postgraduate courses in the UK, reported that 40% of the students rated ‘family pressure to achieve good grades’ as ‘very important’ Fourth, lack of time, as mentioned above, is another factor that causes students to commit plagiarism Park (2003) suggests that students could be distracted because of peer pressure for an active social life and family responsibilities Additionally, extraordinary time pressure for students is caused

by students’ poor time management skills and close deadlines for submitting a number of written assignments (Franklyn-Stokes and Newstead, 1995; Errey, 2002) Egan’s (2008) indicated that in comparing plagiarism attitudes of Malay and domestic undergraduate students at an Australian university, Malaysian students held more permissive attitudes towards plagiarism than Australian students The author explained this result as academic pressure such as workloads that are too heavy causing students to allow themselves involving in academic dishonesty

Plagiarism in academic writing shown in plagiarist tactics

Mentioning about plagiarism in a broad view just helps students to have a general picture of what plagiarism is It is beneficial to clearly specify certain acts that could be judged as plagiarism so that the students could have a guideline of what to avoid while doing research papers The strategies mentioned in Norton et al (1996) as “Rules of the Games” were used to improve coursework grades of the students Jill P (2006) classified the strategies into categories as:

Text-tampering behaviors: include certain acts in which the summited papers were altered in some

ways such as inventing or altering data, not referencing sources used or submitting coursework from outside source

‘Keeping your head down’ strategies include activities that may help the students to get by the

course easily without being noticed by the instructors such as not writing anything too controversial and chose an unpopular essay title so your answer is distinctive

‘Strategies that involve other students’ relating to the use of someone else’s papers such as

submitting work as an individual when it has been written with another student, or allowing coursework to be copied Submitted someone else’s work as your own with their permission

Strategies to cope with the demand for assignment deadlines such as using the same paper for

various courses The strategies were confirmed by Jill P (2006) to be widely used in higher education

by the students Among the strategies, falsification of data and bibliography was used the most frequent

as the students had a tendency to think that it was not as serious as the other cheating tips like altering other people’s papers or using someone else’s ideas without mentioning the original author

2.3 Conceptual framework for the current study

In the current study, deep insights would be given into students’ perception about the importance of keeping academic integrity in writing and reasons that are likely to lead them to commit plagiarism, both intentionally and unintentionally

The definition of plagiarism in academic writing used in this study is taken from Bailey (2013)

as “Plagiarism means taking ideas or words from a source without giving credit to the author.” and Plagiarism is seriously considered as a kind of crime because ideas and words used in academic research papers are considered as intellectual property

Figure 2.3a which is adopted from Powell (2012) in the article entitled “Understanding plagiarism: developing a model of plagiarizing behavior” summarized the theoretical framework for the study This figure provides a clear and complete understanding of the factors relating to the topic of plagiarism which will lead the way for the research instrument

As shown in the figure, Powell (2012) explained that the way the students perceived plagiarism and how they performed in real practice formed their awareness of plagiarism The awareness of plagiarism is defined by Powell (2012) to include Unaware and Aware of plagiarism Students who were unaware of plagiarism would then commit Unintentional plagiarism Those who were aware of plagiarism would form their attitude towards the issue and then had the intention to plagiarize In other words in order to explore the factors that related to plagiarism, the current study was based on Powell (2012)’s model that students’ awareness about plagiarism and their attitude towards academic integrity had a link together Analyzing the elements forming students’ attitude towards plagiarism would help

to understand how their awareness was affected The attitude of the students included situational variables and personal traits Situational variables are students’ contextual factors which are related to the pressures from other parties like family, financial situation and time management skill; students’ prior learning experiences, especially in academic writing and their enthusiasm in fulfill the assigned tasks during their courses In this case, whether students strictly follow conventions or not depends on the punishments for plagiarism cases from the universities where they pursuit their learning Besides, awareness about plagiarism is also affected by students’ personal traits which include goal orientation and academic integration The level of focus that students put on their result of the course is called goal

orientation Students with a desire to get high grades could tend to plagiarize and to their opinion that is not a serious fault In contrast, those who do not have a strong connection with learning at their institution are considered to have low academic integration They may not be enthusiastic in learning as well as avoiding plagiarism in academic writing Moreover, committing plagiarism in writing is also the result of students’ problems with language proficiency and conventions in academic writing which

is sometimes new to the students compared with their prior experience in learning other types of writing

Figure 2.3a: Factors leading to academic plagiarism (Lisa, 2012)

Figure 2.3b shows Lin Norton et al (2004)’s strategies named as “Rules of the Game” The strategies have been employed by students in institutions around the world as they believe that could help them strengthen their essays to get good marks However, the strategies mentioned in Lin Norton et al (2004) were also classified as plagiarist acts

Beliefs about plagiarism

and values associated

with those beliefs

Figure 2.3b: Plagiarist behaviors (Lin Norton et al, 2004)

2.4 Summary

The current chapter reviews the literature covering two main factors leading students to resort to plagiarism while conducting writing assignments The chapter also reviews relevant studies investigating the situation of plagiarism among other countries The present study involves graduate students as participants, is conducted to identify their awareness of plagiarism and practice when conducting their projects in the courses during the time they spent learning for Post-graduation level Methods on how the current study is conducted would be presented in chapter 3

plagiarist tactics

Text-tampering behaviors

‘Keeping your head down’ ‘

Strategies that involve other students’

Strategies to cope with the demand

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

Information on research methodology is presented in this chapter Specifically, the present chapter provides information about the research questions, research design, participants, and research

instruments Data collection and statistical method are also described

3.1 Research questions

By answering the research questions below, the current study aimed to find out post-graduate students’ awareness about plagiarism in academic writing and their practice in learning in order not to commit plagiarism:

1 What is the awareness of post-graduate students about plagiarism in academic writing?

2 How often do Post-Graduate students at Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, Hồ Chí Minh city University of Social Sciences and Humanities use cheating strategies during their study?

3.2 Research design

This research was designed as a descriptive study on a master program in TEFL in post-graduate session at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City Data gained through questionnaires including both multiple choice and open questions were collected and analyzed to find out students’ awareness about plagiarism in academic writing and the way they deal with the obligatory rules in order not to commit plagiarism while doing research paper

3.3 Research context

The current research was based on the perception and practice of students in academic writing which happens mostly in post-graduate level so the research chose the study’s setting at Post- graduate session, Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities,

Ho Chi Minh city As included in the curriculum of the program, students are introduced to the term of

“plagiarism” and how to keep academic integrity through the course entitled Academic Writing In order to fulfill the course requirements, students also have to write academic essays which require them

to search for and reflect on existing theory in the field of English education It is believed that the students would have certain experiences relating to their process of writing academic paper as well as

build up their perception about the notion of academic plagiarism through their writing process

3.5 Research instruments

In order to measure students’ awareness about plagiarism in academic writing and the strategies they employed during their learning, two separate questionnaires were used in this study The quantitative data were collected from questionnaires passed to 57 former graduate students

3.5.1 Questionnaire on students’ awareness about plagiarism

Questionnaire 1 (see Appendix A) included three sections along with an introduction to the objective of the study at the beginning The first section sought personal information of the participants such as age, gender, job and the participants’ experience in doing theses or writing academic paper in their previous years of studying The second section, the main part of the questionnaire, included 26 items All the items were designed in a 5-point Likert scale from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree The statements were designed to manifest the factors relating to students’ awareness about academic plagiarism basing on the adaptation of Lisa (2012)’s model of factors relating to plagiarism The items belonged to two main variables which were mentioned previously in the conceptual framework as Situational variables and Personal traits Situational traits mentioned in the first 13 items related to variables from the context surrounding the students during their learning Personal traits which were known as factors from the students themselves were manifested in items 14

to 26

The first 9 items concerning about students’ academic performance and prior learning experience and external pressure they had to encounter during their learning process

In order to measure the degree to which students were satisfied with the course and assignments, items 10, 11, 12, 13 were designed

Items 14 to 17 concerning about students’ practice in their learning process which included the extent to which they apply the theory of how to avoid plagiarism into their process of writing academic paper

Items 18 to 26 were used to test students’ understanding of plagiarism and the cultural values that have an impact on their perception of plagiarism

3.5.2 Questionnaire on students’ use of cheating writing tactics

The 15 items in questionnaire 2 (see Appendix B) were adopted from Lin Norton et al (2004)’s guidance on shortcuts to gain high scores in written assignments The aim of the questionnaire is to know if the students used any of the cheating behaviors when doing writing assignments during their learning The strategies listed in the questionnaire were not mentioned as cheating so as not to make the students feel that they were under pressured of being judged as having plagiarized acts The participants were asked to indicate the frequency of using the mentioned strategies In the next part of the questionnaire, the participants would then be asked to indicate whether each of the strategies are

acceptable when considering about academic ethics or not and their explanation for their answers

3.6 Data collection procedure

57 participants were contacted so as to inform them of the research aims and invited participation, the questionnaire was sent to them by e-mail together with a clearly written instruction For participants’ ease of response, the questionnaire was designed so that participants could answer online through a link to Google docs

It took participants about 20 minutes to complete two parts of the questionnaire utilizing a 5-point Likert Scale In the first part, participants were requested to show their agreement or disagreement towards 34 statements in the questionnaire by leaving a tick among the numbers 1-5 The second part

of the questionnaire required the participants to tick on the scale indicating their frequency of using cheating forms mentioned in the questionnaire They were also asked to choose one strategy that to them was acceptable when used in learning and indicated the reason why The respondents were assured that their responses were strictly confidential

3.7 Data analysis procedure

3.7.1 Piloting the questionnaire

In order to test the reliability of the questionnaire, thirty students in the recent cohort in the same program with the research participants were willing to participate in piloting the questionnaire These students were at the final phase of studying at the time they received the questionnaire The questionnaire was delivered to the students by e-mail The reliability analysis shows that the Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency for the questionnaire was acceptable (α = 7) Spelling and grammar mistake as well as level of difficulty of vocabulary used in the items were carefully revised

3.7.2 Administering the questionnaire

After 57 student participants were contacted, informed of the research aims and invited participation, the questionnaire was sent to them by e-mail together with a clearly written instruction in both English and Vietnamese Because of the convenience for participants, the questionnaire was designed using Google docs so that participants could answer online through a link sent to their emails

It took participants about 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire and the other two parts of the instrument Participants were requested to show their agreement or disagreement towards the statements in the questionnaire by leaving a tick among the numbers 1-5 The respondents were assured that their responses were strictly confidential

For quantitative analysis, the coded data obtained from the questionnaire were transferred to the Software Package of Statistics for the Social Science (SPSS-16.0 version) Quantitative analysis would partially answer the first research question

For qualitative analysis, the information recorded from open questions in part 2 was synthesized and analyzed later

on previous theory reviewed from other studies

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter reports the results of the present research into students’ awareness about plagiarism in academic writing and the frequency of using forms of plagiarism, if any, during their learning and discussion from the results found within the scope of the study

4.1 Data analysis:

The data were collected within the total number of 57 participants in Post-graduate session, Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh city The data gained through the questionnaires were subjected to SPSS to calculate the necessary statistics The reliability of the questionnaire was α = 76, which guaranteed that the findings

of the current study is valid

Table 4.1 Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's

Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items

N of Items

Concerning the students’ background knowledge on writing academic paper, 91.1% of them claimed to be taught about referencing source material (Figure 4.1a) and 78.6% of the participants knew the skills to prevent plagiarism in academic writing (Figure 4.1b)

Figure 4.1a Students’ background knowledge on writing academic paper

Figure 4.1b Students’ knowledge of writing conventions

4.1.1 Students’ awareness of plagiarism in academic writing

In order to assess how the students perceive the concept of plagiarism in their learning, the first part of the questionnaire including 33 items was used The Descriptive Statistic was run on the mean score of students’ responses to the items in the questionnaire in order to have a deeper insight into what students thought about academic plagiarism Through data analysis, it could be seen that factors concerning students’ personal variables and situational variables affect the participants’ awareness about plagiarism differently

Students’ understanding of plagiarism

In order to identify students’ understanding of plagiarism, the Descriptive Statistic was run on the mean score of nine clusters in the questionnaire The results were briefly reported in Table 4.1.1a

Table 4.1.1a Students’ understanding of plagiarism

N Minimum Maximum Mean

Std

Deviation

Copying material and turning it in as

Clear about rules of citing, paraphrasing

Lose track of the different sources used

Most of the participants claimed to have an understanding of what constitutes plagiarism (Item

1, M=1.96) As a consequence, the participants have a strong disapproval of the act of plagiarism described as turning in material copied from outside sources (64.3% of them (M= 4.34) responded to Item 2 as Disagree) In response to Item 3, most of those surveyed (73.2%, M= 2.16) indicated that they are clear about citing source materials, rules of paraphrasing and reference However, a certain number of the participants (Item 4, M=3.27) claimed to lose track of the different sources used throughout their paper to include in the reference lists

Students’ experience in writing academic papers

Table 4.1.1b Students’ experience in writing academic paper

N Minimum Maximum Mean

More familiar with memorizing ideas in

textbooks than writing coursework

Joined classes/ workshops/ programs to

assist and support students in

to Item 11 as joining classes/ workshops/ programs that are designed to assist and support students in developing an understanding of plagiarism was not popular among most of them (M=3.18) The participants were also not sure if memorizing ideas in textbooks for final exams is more familiar to them than writing coursework papers to fulfill a course or not ( Item 7, M= 3.14) In response to Item 8, most of the participants claimed that they had problem when paraphrasing materials because of their lack of suitable vocabulary and sentence structures (M= 2.93) Approximately most of the participants agreed to Item 9 that they fully understand source materials used as theory foundation for their paper (M= 2.29)

Students’ awareness about policies towards plagiarism and course requirements

Table 4.1.1c Students’ awareness about policies towards plagiarism and course

requirements

N Minimum Maximum Mean

Std

Deviation

Faculty is effective at catching

students who plagiarize

5

Both University and Faculty have

strict academic integrity policies

5

Totally aware of Faculty’s policies

towards plagiarism in learning

5

Courses completion requirements

in Post-graduate level are hard to achieve

In order to have an insight in to the students’ contentment with course requirements, item 15, 16 were analyzed Course completion requirements are not too hard to achieve, according to 44.6% of the participants’ respond to Item 15 (M= 3.07) The participants also claimed to have no objection to teachers’ assessment criteria as manifested in Item 16 with M= 2.57