Student Plagiarism and National Differences across Europe

Problem of student plagiarism is one of the biggest concerns in the educational environment and is becoming increasingly extensive among student around the world. Researchers believe that nationality and ethnicity influence diverse interpretations of proper academic behaviour regulations. The observable link between students’ attitudes and their national background becomes a basis for numerous studies. What is more, many researchers (Pennycook 1996, Introna et al. 2003, Yusof 2009) agree that the concept of intellectual and textual ownership is a Western idea. The same authors use phrases such as “Western” or “European” approach towards plagiarism, neglecting any possible disparities in mindsets of students inside Europe. This creates an opportunity for a new project to analyse these concerns and to gather data from a variety of European HEIs. The author of this paper has experience of studying and working at different universities across Europe, where she realised the importance of knowledge and that its value is continuously decreasing. Working in a multicultural team of university staff and students gave her chance to understand the significance of plagiarism prevention and discover the correlation between academic dishonesty and national differences among students. The author is involved in a European-wide research project IPPHEAE (Impact of Policies for Plagiarism in Higher Education across Europe) which aims to investigate plagiarism awareness, prevention and detection at the institutional level, in order to minimise the problem of academic dishonesty, while maintaining consistency in standards and quality of HE across Europe. Being part of the IPPHEAE project, the author received an opportunity to focus on her own research which is an offshoot of the main project and concerns the plagiarism problem from the student perspective. Her project covers two aspects of the research which may disclose the reasons behind the dishonest academic behaviour. One part involves investigation of students’ morality and ethics, whereas the other concerns analysis of the Higher Education system in which students gain academic knowledge and improve their writing skills. The aim of this research is to find out whether students from diverse European countries and backgrounds present different attitudes towards plagiarism or they have similar “European” view on academic dishonesty. Together with the IPPHEAE project team the author prepared a student questionnaire that covers variety of issues regarding plagiarism awareness, perception and occurrence, institutional policies and procedures, plagiarism deterrence and detection, as well as scholarly academic writing with an emphasis on citing and referencing. The survey was tested on a group of Coventry University students and translated to almost all European languages. Questionnaires are available on-line, and therefore can reach a larger number of participants. Analysis of collected answers should lead to a broader understanding of students experience in the Higher Education environment, as well as identify procedural gaps and best practices that could contribute towards reducing the problem of plagiarism.