Understanding Student Plagiarism: An Empirical Study in Accounting Education

The purpose of this paper is to: (i) identify factors concerning student plagiarism in accounting education; (ii) develop and empirically test a model of factors influencing students' plagiaristic behaviour; and (iii) make recommendations to accounting educators to reduce the incidence of student plagiarism. A questionnaire was administrated to 381 UK accounting students. Structural equation modelling was used to assist data analysis. Research results indicate four antecedents of student plagiarism labelled: (i) academic integration; (ii) cultural influences; (iii) moral capability; and (iv) gender. The surface learning approach taken by accounting students is found to be positively associated with their pressures such as fear of failure and time pressure. The paper concludes by suggesting that educators should adopt a supportive approach to motivating students to act in a consistent, ethical manner in their academic life.

[1]  Guofang Wan,et al.  The Learning Experience of Chinese Students in American Universities: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. , 1999 .

[2]  Christine E. Earley,et al.  A Note on Ethics Educational Interventions in an Undergraduate Auditing Course: Is there an ‘Enron’ Effect? , 2004 .

[3]  Attila Szabo,et al.  Cybercheats: Is Information and Communication Technology Fuelling Academic Dishonesty?. , 2004 .

[4]  P. Ashworth,et al.  Guilty in whose eyes? University students' perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment , 1997 .

[5]  Kenneth J. Smith,et al.  A structural modeling investigation of the influence of demographic and attitudinal factors and in-class deterrents on cheating behavior among accounting majors , 2002 .

[6]  L. Kohlberg,et al.  The Philosophy Of Moral Development , 1982 .

[7]  Mary Beth Armstrong,et al.  Ethics and professionalism in accounting education: A sample course , 1993 .

[8]  Richard Smith,et al.  Cheating at medical school , 2000, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[9]  A. Pennycook.  Borrowing Others' Words: Text, Ownership, Memory, and Plagiarism , 1996 .

[10]  G. Hofstede,et al.  Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind , 1991 .

[11]  P. Love,et al.  Factors influencing cheating and plagiarism among graduate students in a college of education. , 1998 .

[12]  V. Beattie,et al.  Deep and surface learning: a simple or simplistic dichotomy? , 1997 .

[13]  Shelley Yeo,et al.  First‐year university science and engineering students’ understanding of plagiarism , 2007 .

[14]  N. Entwistle,et al.  Approaches to Studying and Perceptions of the Learning Environment Across Disciplines. , 1995 .

[15]  A. Fleming.  Ethics and accounting education in the UK — a professional approach? , 1996 .

[16]  Linda Klebe Trevino,et al.  What We Know About Cheating In College Longitudinal Trends and Recent Developments , 1996 .

[17]  M. Glachan,et al.  An Evaluation of Factors Influencing the Academic Self-concept, Self-esteem and Academic Stress for Direct and Re-entry Students in Higher Education , 2001 .

[18]  Jeffrey D. Facteau,et al.  The influence of General Perceptions of the Training Environment on Pretraining Motivation and Perceived Training Transfer , 1995 .

[19]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[20]  Daryl M. Guffey,et al.  Gender differences in determining the ethical sensitivity of future accounting professionals , 1996 .

[21]  P. Booth,et al.  The quality of learning in accounting education: the impact of approaches to learning on academic performance , 1999 .

[22]  Albert Caruana,et al.  The Effect of Anomie on Academic Dishonesty among University Students. , 2000 .

[23]  Michael K. Shaub.  An analysis of the association of traditional demographic variables with the moral reasoning of auditing students and auditors , 1994 .

[24]  Robert L. Wrenn,et al.  Perspectives on age differences , 1990 .

[25]  J. Biggs,et al.  The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological, and Contextual Influences. , 1996 .

[26]  Chris J. Park,et al.  In Other (People's) Words: Plagiarism by university students--literature and lessons , 2003 .

[27]  R. Gray,et al.  Teaching ethics in accounting and the ethics of accounting teaching: educating for immorality and a possible case for social and environmental accounting education , 1994 .

[28]  Steven Lukes,et al.  Alienation and Anomie , 1977 .

[29]  Rebecca Moore Howard,et al.  Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty , 1995, College English.

[30]  Mohammad J. Abdolmohammadi,et al.  The Relationship between Moral Reasoning and Plagiarism in Accounting Courses: A Replication Study , 2007 .

[31]  Colin Sowden.  POINT AND COUNTERPOINT: Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad , 2005 .

[32]  Tim Moore.  From Text to Note: Cultural Variation in Summarization Practices. , 1997 .

[33]  Miguel Roig,et al.  Are College Cheating and Plagiarism Related to Academic Procrastination? , 1995 .

[34]  Phil Davies,et al.  Computerized Peer Assessment , 2000 .

[35]  Barbara G. Tabachnick,et al.  Why Professors Ignore Cheating: Opinions of a National Sample of Psychology Instructors , 1998 .

[36]  Mikaela Björklund,et al.  Academic cheating : frequency, methods and causes. Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), September 22-25, Lahti, Finland , 1999 .

[37]  Roger Bennett,et al.  Factors associated with student plagiarism in a post‐1992 university , 2005 .

[38]  Neil Selwyn,et al.  ‘Not necessarily a bad thing …’: a study of online plagiarism amongst undergraduate students , 2008 .

[39]  Ellen Krupar,et al.  Mouse Click Plagiarism: The Role of Technology in Plagiarism and the Librarian's Role in Combating It , 2001, Libr. Trends.

[40]  Lawrence A. Ponemon.  Can ethics be taught in accounting , 1993 .

[41]  D. Crown,et al.  Learning from the Literature on Collegiate Cheating: A Review of Empirical Research , 1998 .

[42]  Albert H. Segars,et al.  Re-examining perceived ease of use and usefulness , 1993 .

[43]  M. G. Eley,et al.  Differential adoption of study approaches within individual students , 1992 .

[44]  G. Diekhoff,et al.  College cheating: Immaturity, lack of commitment, and the neutralizing attitude , 1986 .

[45]  John Walker,et al.  Student Plagiarism in Universities: What are we Doing About it? , 1998 .

[46]  Lucas D. Introna,et al.  Cultural Values, Plagiarism, and Fairness: When Plagiarism Gets in the Way of Learning , 2005 .

[47]  Jude Carroll,et al.  A Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education , 2002 .

[48]  A. Abram.  The Philosophy of Moral Development , 2007 .

[49]  Anna L. Cox,et al.  ‘At least they’re learning something’: the hazy line between collaboration and collusion , 2005 .

[50]  Stephen E. Newstead,et al.  Undergraduate Cheating: Who Does What and Why?. , 1995 .

[51]  Patty Roberts,et al.  Academic Misconduct: Where Do We Start?. , 1997 .

[52]  Jagdip Singh,et al.  Antecedents and Consequences of Burnout in Accounting: Beyond the Role Stress Model , 1997 .

[53]  M. Seeman,et al.  CHAPTER 7 – Alienation and Anomie , 1991 .

[54]  Robert John Evans,et al.  Evaluating an electronic plagiarism detection service , 2006 .

[55]  Kathleen Gray,et al.  In their own words: a qualitative study of the reasons Australian university students plagiarize , 2007 .

[56]  Orthodoxia Kyriacou,et al.  Exploring the Implementation of Ethics in U.K. Accounting Programs , 2008 .

[57]  Noorlaila Ghazali,et al.  Attitudes towards plagiarism among undergraduate accounting students: Malaysian evidence , 2007 .

[58]  L. Thorne.  Refocusing ethics education in accounting: an examination of accounting students’ tendency to use their cognitive moral capability , 2001 .

[59]  Lawrence A. Ponemon.  Ethical judgments in accounting: A cognitive-developmental perspective , 1990 .