Factors that influence on students’ attitudes towards plagiarism: The case of Vietnam

Plagiarism is a frequent form of misconduct in academic environment, however the way that students recognize it is quite a new subject in Viet Nam. This research is to examine different factors affecting attitudes of students towards plagiarism in Viet Nam by questioning 845 students. The methodologies of Cronbach‟s Alpha, Exploratory Factor Analyzing (EFA) and linear multiple regressioning were used by SPSS program. The results show that there are 4 major factors having significant influence on students‟ attitudes towards plagiarism, including institution, lack of awareness, personal attitudes and lack of competence. Pressure and internet facilities have no impact on student‟s attitudes towards plagiarism. From that result, we also suggest that on the long term there must be some solutions to reduce the proclivity towards plagiarism.

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS PLAGIARISM: THE CASE OF VIETNAM Hoang Thi Hue hoanghue@neu.edu.vn Faculty of Human Resources Economics and Management, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam Nguyen Thi Thom thomnguyen30111997@gmail.com, Trinh Thi Nhat Le lektqdk57@gmail.com Human Resources Economics and Management 57, Faculty of Human Resources Economics and Management, National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam Abstract: Plagiarism is a frequent form of misconduct in academic environment, however the way that students recognize it is quite a new subject in Viet Nam This research is to examine different factors affecting attitudes of students towards plagiarism in Viet Nam by questioning 845 students The methodologies of Cronbach‟s Alpha, Exploratory Factor Analyzing (EFA) and linear multiple regressioning were used by SPSS program The results show that there are major factors having significant influence on students‟ attitudes towards plagiarism, including institution, lack of awareness, personal attitudes and lack of competence Pressure and internet facilities have no impact on student‟s attitudes towards plagiarism From that result, we also suggest that on the long term there must be some solutions to reduce the proclivity towards plagiarism Key words: Attitudes, plagiarism, Viet Nam Introduction The rationale of the study The education system in every area of the country has been facing a real challenge, which is cheating in academic In the case of higher education, the time that students have to complete tasks that require innovative thinking more than ever before, plagiarism is a typical form of academic misconduct McCabe et al (2001) claimed that student‘s academic misconduct, such as cheating and plagiarism, has increased in recent decades and is an important concern in higher education According to an article pulished on Thanh Nien online (2012), in fact, plagiarism from each other has been taken openly and popularly by not only students but also teachers in academic environment of Viet Nam Gullifer and Tyson (2010) suggested that theory and research in psychology show that a thorough understanding of an individual's view of an issue or problem is an essential requirement for successful change of that person's attitudes and behaviour 552 Purpose statement The purpose of this research is to explore what factors that have impact on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism are Also studying how to measure each factor influences on this attitudes Morever, we generate a model and validate the model of the impact of these factors on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism Research questions To better understand factors that affect students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism, we sought to answer these questions: How does pressure influence students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism? How does internet facilities influence students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism? How does institution influence students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism? How does lack of awareness influence students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism? How does personal attitudes influence students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism? How does lack of competence influence students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism? Literature review Attitudes towards plagiarism Plagiarism is a popular problem also is misunderstood by lacking of knowledge and skills Researchers claimed that many people not actually comprehend what plagiarism is According to Smith et al (2007), plagiarism is using other‘s words and ideas on purpose without accepting sources clearly In addition, Smith et el said that plagiarism is a form of dishonest about mind, it is relevant to using other‘s words without citing and acknowledging fully The intentional behavior including copy someone‘s idea and turn it into themselves is also considered a type of plagiarism According to Fishbein‘s literature (1961, p14), ―Attitude is viewed as effective or evaluative in nature, and that it is determined by the person‘s beliefs about the attitude object Most people hold both positive and negative beliefs about an object, and attitude is viewed as corresponding to the total affect asscociated with their beliefs‖ Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) also claimed that attitude towards an object is viewed as related to the person‘s intentions to perform a variety of behaviours with respect to that object So we can conclude that attitude towards plagiarism is related to an individual‘s intention of plagiarizing behavior Many different studies have given factors that influence on plagiarism tendency Harding et al (2001) divided into three main group: demographic characteristic factors, social - economics factors and circumstance factors Demographic characteristic factors include: gender, extracurricular activitie joining, age and educational level (graduate and postgraduate) Dordoy (2002) claimed that important factors that have impact on plagiarism are promotion, laziness or untimely management, accessibility to Internet materials, unaware of rules and regulations, and unintentional theft Love and Simmons 553 (1998), together with Scanlon and Neumann (2002), proposed six factors contributing to plagiarism: lack of awareness, individual attitudes, availability of resources Internet, lack of capacity, pressure and institutional characteristics Base on Smith et al (2007), our research team decided to investigate six factors which have influence on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism They are: pressure, internet facilities, institution, lack of awareness, personal attitude and lack of competence Pressure Collins and Morris (2008) said that stress is a phenomenon involving the process of complex interaction between a person and their environment, which is constantly changing As a result of stress, psychological, behavioral and physical symptoms can occur, increasing dissatisfaction and anxiety, which may produce a variety of illness In term of academic, pressure of time that students have to complete assigment is the factor that promotes students to choose to plagiarize instead of doing by themselves Moeck (2002) claimed that some students feel pressure to get better grades and some students struggle academically and feel that cheating is their only path to any kind of success With tremendous pressure and competition for grades, some will cheat or plagiarize to maintain a high GPA, which can please parents, result in selection to school leadership roles, and impress corporate recruiters Internet facilities Accoding to Razera (2011) the development of the internet for the past decades made possible the spread of information (any information) worldwide Thus, almost everything is possible to be found in the internet, from articles and papers presented/ published in prestigious conferences, journals to websites with texts written by anonymous persons Within the ambit of this study, internet facilities were mentioned as the things that enable to disseminate any kind of information by a simple way all over the world That also means that it is so easy and quick to access and copy available documents via internet It has been alleged that the widespread availability of access to the Internet, and online academic journals have contributed much to the rising incidence of plagiarism, as they have made it possible for students to find and save large amounts of information from diverse sources with little reading, effort or originality (McKenzie, 1998) In addition, the use of the Internet for assignment completion was found to be strongly positively correlated to plagiarism (Eccles et al., 2006) Institution Smith et al (2007) said that institution-specific factors can take many forms, including the attitudes of lecturers and administrators to the incidence of plagiarism, and the associated prevention, detection and punishment mechanisms in place FranklynStokes and Newstead (1995) argued that administrators and academic staff may not be doing enough to identify and implement measures to limit student plagiarism In addition, Kibler (1994) also said institutional action on student plagiarism is generally of a reactive nature and is not nearly proactive enough in attempting to prevent or reduce it 554 Lack of awareness Lack of awareness is understood here as the case of students not keep track of things which significantly component plagiarism so they don‘t consider it as a problem Although students have a sound understanding of plagiarism‘s definition, their knowledge of actions forming plagiarism is also diversified Walker (1998) said that some forms of plagiarism may merely stem from lack of awareness of academic conventions or simple carelessness on the part of the student Share Walker‘s views, Harris, R (2002) claimed that there may be a similar lack of awareness about the significance of the offence and likely penalties Many other students know what plagiarism is, but don't consider it wrong The belief that ―information wants to be free‖ and the idea that copying from sources with a few words of one's own is merely ―patch writing‖ a normal way to write, support these students in their beliefs Dawson and Overfield (2006) determined that students were aware that plagiarism is bad but they were not clear of what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it Students required that teachers should also observe the rules to avoid plagiarism and they should be consistently reminded of awareness about plagiarism to enforce the university resolve to control this academic sin Personal attitudes Most of previous studies had shown that if students don‘t seriously attempt and be willing to complete assignments, they will choose cheating or plagiarising for certain Plagiarism rate is directly proportional to the hardness‘ rate of assignment They are not compassionate to work or learn, they fear large amount of tasks which are need to Thomas and Znaniecki (1918-1920) - the first people using attitude‘s defininition - claimed that ―attitude is individually mental state towards a value‖ There are two forms of personal attitude: positive and negative According to Ashworth et al (1997) another reason was revealed by students is that lectures‘ neutral towards plagiarist, they are also aware of plagiarism as a small problem Lack of competence There are some studies had shown that study and teaching method also have parts in factors that influence on plagiarism Sterngold (2004) argued that normal teaching methods have suggested and led to plagiarism behaviour He also claimed that most of students have poor research and writing skills Nearly all have no idea how to evaluate source‘s quality and suitability or collect and integrate data from numerous sources but they are unble to use it to write themselves‘ in a clear and logical way They also not know how to support their own ideas by proofs and arguments Proposed model The model as proffered by Smith et al (2007) explained the impact of six factors which include pressure, internet facilities, institutions, lack of awareness, personal attitudes and lack of competence on the students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism We used Smith et al.‘s model (2007) as our original model for our study In addition to proposing the direct impact of six factors on students‘ attitudes plagiarism (Figure 1) 555 Figure 1: Proposed model Presure Internet facilities Students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism Institution Lack of awareness Personal attitudes Lack of competence Source: Smith et al (2007) Hypotheses Hypothesis (H1): Pressure has a negative impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism Hypothesis (H2): Internet facilities have a negative impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism Hypothesis (H3): Institution have a negative impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism Hypothesis (H4): Lack of awareness has a negative impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism Hypothesis (H5): Personal attitudes have a negative impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism Hypothesis (H6): Lack of competence has a negative impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism Method Research instruments Our study used the Likert scale of points from - ―absolutely not agree‖ to point - ―absolutely agre‖ for both dependent and independent variables based on the scale listed in Table 556 Table1: Variables Factor Pressure Internet facilities Institution Observed variables PR1 I have limited time to finish work PR2 I feel pressure to complete too many assignments during a given time period PR3 I have too many subjects in one particular semester PR4 I feel pressure from peers IF1 I think that cutting and pasting from the internet and word processing is much easier and faster IF2 I find it is easy to download articles from websites IF3 I find that there is too much information available in electronic format especially from websites IN1 I not know the legal implication of plagiarism IN2 Lectures not care about plagiarism, they are too busy so usually not response to develope my writing IN3 IN4 Lack of awareness Personal attitudes Lack of competence Attitudes towards plagiarism Description References Applied scale adjustments of Smith et al (2007) and Husain et al (2017) Applied scale adjustments of Smith et al (2007) Applied scale adjustments of Smith et al (2007); Normal lecture method does not make me Amiri and Razmjoo (2016)and Husain acquire new knowledge that leads to plagiarism et al (2017) Universities not have a clear policy on academic misconduct behaviours LA1 I not understand what constitutes plagiarism LA2 I not see plagiarism as a problem LA3 I was not aware of plagiarism when in high school LA4 I was not aware of serious level of plagiarim PA1 I not have the desire to work or learn PA2 I not feel the need for knowledge in the future PA3 I am not interested in the topic PA4 I am lazy and used to delaying work LC1 I not have the confidence to prepare a good assignment LC2 I have poor research skills LC3 I have difficulty in studying abouts subjects ATP1 Sometimes I feel tempted to plagiarise ATP2 I know what plagiarism is ATP3 Plagiarism is as bad as stealing an exam Applied scale adjustments of Smith et al (2007) and Madray (2007) Applied scale adjustments of Smith et al (2007) Applied scale adjustments of Smith et al (2007) Applied scale adjustments of Ehrich et al (2015) 557 Factor Observed variables Description ATP4 Using others‘ work with their permission is ok ATP5 Plagiarism is ok if the Professor gives you too much work ATP6 Punishment for plagiarism should be light ATP7 Downloaded papers and using as one‘s own should mean expulsion from university ATP8 Plagiarism is against my ethical values ATP9 Plagiarism involves taking others‘ words, not property, so it‘s no big deal ATP10 ATP11 ATP12 References You can‘t plagiarise yourself If I lend a paper to a student to look at who plagiarises, I should not be punished also Plagiarists should receive a special grade for cheating, which would deter them Sample and Data collection Because our study seeks to explore what factors and how these factors affects students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism, we use a sample of some universities in Vietnam: National Economics University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, University of Labor and Social Affairs, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi University of Industry, Trade Union University, Thuyloi University These universities‘ students are highly representative for economic and technological students in Ha Noi To achieve the objective of the study, we conducted the survey by sending questionnaires to students from the above selected universities in Ha Noi We received 871 replies and used 845 qualified answers in the analysis We analyzed the data using SPSS software version 20.0 with the following specific steps: Firstly: Do statistics describing the observable variables of the scale Secondly: Assess the reliability of the scale Thirdly: Verify the value of the scale by means of exploratory factor analysis - EFA Fourthly: Analyze correlation and multiple regression Result Cronbach‟s Alpha The ―Pressure‖ independent variable has a coefficient of Cronbach's Alpha of 0.614, ranging from 0.6 to 0.8, so that the scales are linked together and it is an usable measurement scale However, the fourth observation variable was rejected due to inadequate requirements that the total variable correlation coefficient is 0,299 (less than 0.3) The independent variable ―Attitudes towards plagiarism‖ has a Cronbach's Alpha coefficient greater than 0.6, so the scale can be used relatively well However, after five times, there are five observation variables have a total correlation coefficient of less than 558 0.3 are eliminated They are ATP2, ATP3, ATP7, ATP8, ATP12 with the total variable correlation coefficients in turn are 0.159, 0.211, 0.226, 0.182, 0.283 Other independent variables all have coefficients of Cronbach‘s Alpha more than 0.8 So, this is a relatively good scale After eliminating inappropriate observational variables, we conducted a test to check reliability again The values of the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient showed that the scales were good, reasonable and consistent The results are shown in Table Table 2: Reliability Cronbach’s alpha Number of varibales Pressure 0,615 Lack of awareness 0.706 Internet facilities 0,771 Personal attitudes 0,702 Lack of competence 0,747 Institution 0,736 Attitudes towards plagiarism 0, 698 Variables Thus, the results of evaluating reliability of the scale by scale by Cronbach's Alpha indicated that the scale is reliable and can be used in future analysis Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) To eliminate scales that are not sufficiently reliable, retaining high adhesion scales, can be grouped into factors that accurately reflect the variables measured in the model, we conducted exploratory factor analysis Factor analysis is conducted once Scales‘ reliability is quite high, no observed variables are excluded and independent variable groups, dependent variable groups remain unchanged Independent variables include pressure, internet facilities, institution, lack of awareness, personal attitudes, lack of competence Dependent variable is attitudes towards plagiarism Table Exploratory factors analysis - EFA KMO P- value Average Variance Extracted Factor Loading Conclusion Independent Variables 0.800 000 59.939 0.800 Qualified Dependent Variables 0.772 000 51.958 0.772 Qualified Table shows that the KMO coefficients are greater than 0.5, indicating that factor analysis is appropriate Bartlett's test is statistically significant at the 5% significance level, indicating that the observed variables are correlated in magnitude When analyzing the 559 EFA factor for independent variables, all the factor load of the observed variables satisfies the condition (factor load > 0.5) and the number of factors created is coincide with the number of factor we had in the beginning They are "Pressure‖, ―Internet facilities‖, ―Institution‖, ―Lack of awareness‖, ―Personal attitudes‖, ―Lack of competence‖ Table also shows that the cumulative of variance is 59.939% (greater than 50%), it means there are 59.939% changes in attitudes towards plagiarism explained by the observed variables When analyzing dependent variables, the factor load of all observed variable satisfies the condition that the factor load is greater than 0.5 To sum up, after using the EFA exploratory factor analysis, the results show all factors have all the same observation variables that load a factor Therefore, the scales selected for the variables in the model are guaranteed to be required, capable of better interpretation and analysis Correlation analysis From the results of Cronbach‘s Alpha, the independent variable of model is adjusted Y: Attitudes towards plagiarism (disregard ATP2, ATP3, ATP7, ATP8, ATP12) We used Pearson correlation coefficient to evaluate the correlation between variables in the model (the results of correlation analysis of variables in the model are presented in Table 4) The results showed that the correlation coefficient (r) has a value of r>0, indicating that the variables are positively correlated Table 4: Mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficient Variables Mean SD ATP PR LA IF PA LC IN ATP 2.87 0.67 0.136 0.371 0.136 0.249 0.254 0.349 PR 3.29 0.69 0.159 0.280 0.134 0.174 0.138 LA 2.75 0.73 0.179 0.242 0.352 0.326 IF 3.65 0.75 0.006 0.222 0.215 PA 2.21 0.71 0.285 0.276 LC 3.06 0.72 0.256 IN 3.00 0.73 The ―Attitudes towards plagiarism‖ variable is strongly correlated with the ―Lack of awareness‖ variable and the ―Institution‖ variable, and the coefficients are 0.371 and 0.349 respectively The correlation coefficients of the ―Pressure‖ variable and the variable ―Internet facilities‖ was 0.280, respectively, therefore the ―Pressure‖ variable quitely correlated with ―Internet facilities‖ The correlation between the ―Lack of awareness‖ variable and the two variables ―Lack of competence‖ and ―Institution‖ are 0.352 and 0.326, so these two variables are closely related to ―Lack of awareness‖ Correlation coefficient between the ―Personal attitudes‖ variable and the ―Lack of competence‖ variable is 0.285, so the two variables have a relatively correlation Thus, most of the independent variables in each model are quite close correlated 560 Regression analysis and hypothesis testing Six factors (presssure, internet facilties, institution, lack of awareness, personal attitudes, lack of competence) influencing on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism Table 5: Regression between six above factors and students’ attitudes towards plagiarism Model Unstandardized Coefficients B Constant Std Error Standardized Coefficients t Collinearity Statistics Sig Beta Tolerance VIF 1.067 151 7.084 000 Pressure 035 032 036 1.098 272 894 1.119 Lack of awareness 219 031 240 7.028 000 799 1.252 Internet facilities 018 030 021 620 535 854 1.171 Personal attitudes 100 031 106 3.185 002 847 1.180 Lack of competence 069 032 074 2.164 031 796 1.256 Institution 194 031 213 6.301 000 818 1.223 a Dependent Variable: Students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism According to table 5, the results of the regression analysis showed that there are two factors including ―Pressure‖ and ―Internet facilities‖ have sig values are 0.272 and 0.535 (more than 0.05) so these factors not influence on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism We can conclude that the hypotheses H1 and H2 were rejected Statistical results of the regression analysis on the standardized β coefficient resulted that ―Lack of awareness‖, ―Personal attitudes‖, ―Lack of competence‖ and ―Insitution‖ all have sig values less than 0.05 That means these four factors have impact on dependent variable so the hypotheses H3, H4, H5, H6 were improved Thus, the factor that has the greatest impact on students' attitudes towards plagiarism is the factor ―Lack of awareness‖ Then the second factor‘s impact is ―Insitution‖ The weaker impact factors is the ―Personal attitudes‖ and the ―Lack of competence‖ From the above result, there is regression model: TD = 0.24*LA + 0.106*PA + 0.074*PA + 0.213*IN Discussion and Conclusion Misconduct in academic environment, specifically plagiarism behaviour of students is a serious problem which education has to face To reduce and prevent this behavior, we need to understand students‘ attitudes towards it and what factors have impact on plagiarism It is also this study‘s aim To find the answer, we carry out by quantitative research 561 A number of these variables contributed to the factors previously identified by Smith, Ghazali and Fatimah (2007) (i.e institution, personal attitudes, lack of awareness) The same point between their result and ours is both found that there is no evidence showed a significant link between students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism and ―pressure‖ (H1), internet facilities (H2) However, while Smith et al‘s study indicated ―Lack of competence‖ factor had not impact on dependent variable, our study‘s result is opposite Specifically, the results indicate that pressure and internet facilities have no impact on student‘s attitudes towards plagiarism There are four fators including institution, lack of awareness, personal atttitudes and lack of competence influence on this attitudes In conclusion, one of the first steps towards preventing plagiarism lies in raising awareness as to its nature and its significance The education program should provide promulgate a official plagiarism‘s definition and concrete examples for making students have full knowledge about plagiarism Morever, understanding citation and reference law may be helpful in decreasing plagiarism Also to improve students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism there must be measure to tighten the educational institution There must be clear rules which are relevant to academic misconduct behaviours and deserved punishments Besides, ameliorating students‘ competence and personal attiudes is necessary Courses in dealing with limited competence skills of students such as: analazing, criticizing, writing and paraphrasing) should be extended References Amiri, F., & Razmjoo, S A (2016) On Iranian EFL undergraduate students‘ perceptions of plagiarism Journal of Academic Ethics, 14(2), 115-131 Ashworth, P., Bannister, P., Thorne, P., & Students on the Qualitative Research Methods Course Unit (1997) Guilty in whose eyes?University students’ perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment Studies in Higher Education, 22(2), 187–203 Bennett*, R (2005) Factors associated with student plagiarism in a post‐1992 university Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30(2), 137-162 Collins, S., Coffey, M., & Morris, L (2008) Social work students: Stress, support and well-being British Journal of Social Work, 40(3), 963-982 Ehrich, J., Howard, S., Tognolini, J., & Bokosmaty, S (2015) Measuring attitudes toward plagiarism: issues and psychometric solutions Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 7(2), 243-257 Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I (1975) Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research Gullifer, J., & Tyson, G A (2010) Exploring university students' perceptions of plagiarism: A focus group study Studies in Higher Education, 35(4), 463-481 Hard, S F., Conway, J M., & Moran, A C (2006) Faculty and college student beliefs about the frequency of student academic misconduct The Journal of Higher Education, 77(6), 1058-1080 Harris, R (2002) Anti-plagiarism strategies for research papers Virtual salt, 10 Hosny, M., & Fatima, S (2014) Attitude of students towards cheating and plagiarism: University case study Journal of Applied Sciences, 14(8), 748-757 562 11 Husain, F M., Al-Shaibani, G K S., & Mahfoodh, O H A (2017) Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Plagiarism and Factors Contributing to Plagiarism: a Review of Studies Journal of Academic Ethics, 15(2), 167-195 12 Ramzan, M., Munir, M A., Siddique, N., & Asif, M (2012) Awareness about plagiarism amongst university students in Pakistan Higher education, 64(1), 73-84 13 Razera, D (2011) Awareness, attitude and perception of plagiarism among students and teachers at Stockholm University Unpublished Master‟s thesis Stockholm University, Sweden Retrieved on August, 30, 2013 14 Sarita, R D (2015) Academic cheating among students: pressure of parents and teachers International Journal of Applied Research 2015, 1(10), 793-797 15 Smith, M., Ghazali, N., & Fatimah Noor Minhad, S (2007) Attitudes towards plagiarism among undergraduate accounting students: Malaysian evidence Asian Review of Accounting, 15(2), 122-146 16 Thanh Nien Online (2012), Be strong with plagiarism, from http://ired.edu.vn/vn/doc-tin/146/phai-manh-tay-voi-dao-van 17 Walker, J (1998) Student plagiarism in universities: What are we doing about it? Higher Education Research & Development, 17(1), 89-106 563 ... student‘s attitudes towards plagiarism There are four fators including institution, lack of awareness, personal atttitudes and lack of competence influence on this attitudes In conclusion, one of the. .. model and validate the model of the impact of these factors on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism Research questions To better understand factors that affect students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism,... these factors not influence on students‘ attitudes towards plagiarism We can conclude that the hypotheses H1 and H2 were rejected Statistical results of the regression analysis on the standardized