Greek Undergraduate and Graduate Students’ Opinions about Plagiarism Causes

Abstract

Plagiarism, intentional or unintentional, is a serious ethical and integrity issue that weighs heavily on the scientific and academic community. Although it is a usual practice, there is very little research found involving Greek universities. The present study aims at examining Greek university students’ opinions regarding plagiarism causes. A total of 663 undergraduate (655 participants) and graduate (8 participants) students from two Departments (Dept.1 and Dept.2) of a Greek university, participated in this study. Two research methods were implemented for the examination of students’ perceptions and experiences with plagiarism. More specifically, a specially designed questionnaire was developed and administered to the undergraduate students whereas semi-structured interviews were conducted with the 8 graduate students. According to the study’s results, all participating students identified similar main causes of plagiarism, while their Department of origins functioned as a differential factor for their perceptions. Overall, our findings were in agreement with the ones reported in the relevant international literature. Lastly, we propose that future research focuses on teachers’ opinions on this matter as well as the effect of a variety of variables, such as reading time and academic year, on students’ perceptions about plagiarism.