Plagiarism in the academic context: A study of Iranian EFL learners

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to shed light on the status of plagiarism in the Iranian academic context. It tried to survey the EFL learners' perceptions of and reasons for different types of plagiarism. To this end, 132 EFL learners from different Iranian universities took part in the study. The data were collected through using a questionnaire specifically designed to gather information on plagiarism. The results indicated that plagiarism is quite common in the Iranian EFL context as different types of plagiarism are employed by the students. Many students were found not to have a negative attitude toward plagiarism. The results also indicated that gender, marital status and occupational status did not have a significant effect on plagiarism, whereas academic level, field of study, and age played a significant role in this regard.

Plagiarism policies in Iranian university TEFL teachers’ syllabuses: an exploratory study

“…Out of the 207 syllabuses, 173 (83.6%) did not include a plagiarism policy. The findings of this study lend support to those obtained by Ahmadi (2014) and Rezanejad and Rezaei (2013), suggesting that students receive little instruction or information on plagiarism and plagiaristic practices from their teachers and universities. While straightforward plagiarism policies and honor codes are being drafted and implemented in many universities and colleges around the world, easily available to both students and the staffwith the expectation that they will read and follow them (Sutherland-Smith 2008), the situation seems to be far below standard among educational institutions in Iran.…”

“…Adam, 2015;Childers and Bruton, 2016;Greenberger, Holbeck, Steele and Dyer, 2016;Krishan, Kanchan, Baryah, Mukhra, 2016;McGrail1 and McGrail, 2015;Pecorari, 2015;Tauginienė, 2016) and in the realm of second language (L2) medium higher education (e.g. Abasi and Akbari, 2008;Abasi and Graves, 2008;Adam, 2015;Ahmadi, 2014;Flowerdew and Li, 2007;Joyce, 2007;Pecorari 2015;Pecorari and Petrić 2014). That is not surprising in this electronic age when access to various online sources is quick and copyright law can be infringed upon quite easily (e.g.…”

“…Moreover, the review of the related literature indicated that although many of those issues have been investigated in Iranian higher education contexts (e.g. Ahmadi, 2012Ahmadi, , 2014Amiri, Khamesan and Ayati, 2012;Khoshsaligheh, Mehdizadkhani and Keyvan, 2017;Rezanejad and Rezaie;, the issue of how Iranian TEFL professors' views towards plagiarism is reflected in their course syllabuses has been ignored. In order to get a better picture of the phenomena, the following research questions were addressed: …”

“…Studies have explored different aspects of the issue, such as students and teachers' perceptions of plagiarism (Ahmadi, 2014;Jones, Reid and Bartlett, 2007;Rezanejad and Rezaei, 2013;Zafarghandi, Khoshroo and Barkat, 2012), why students plagiarize (Bedford, Gregg and Clinton, 2011;Colnerud and Rosander, 2009;Comas-Forgas andSureda-Negre, 2010, Greer et al, 2012;Hughes and McCabe, 2006;Shanahan et al, 2013), and measures/strategies on how to deter students from plagiarism (Abdi, Idris, Alguliyev and Aliguliyev, 2015;Bretag and Mahmud, 2009;Gunnarsson, Kulesza and Pettersson, 2014).…”

“…Many of these studies have revealed that students do not know what constitutes plagiarism and the consequences of committing the act (Bamford and Sergiou, 2005;Park, 2003;Rezanejad and Rezaei, 2013;Wheeler, 2009); that instructors are typically indifferent towards both term projects and plagiarists (Ahmadi, 2014;Bartlett and Smallwood, 2004). As SutherlandSmith (2008) rightly points out, "one of the most frequent criticisms in the higher education sector is that students enter university ill-equipped to study at tertiary levels" (p. 158).…”