bennett 2005 factors associated with student plagiarism in a post 1992 university

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Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

ISSN: 0260-2938 (Print) 1469-297X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/caeh20

Factors associated with student plagiarism in apost‐1992 university

Roger Bennett

To cite this article: Roger Bennett (2005) Factors associated with student plagiarism in a

post‐1992 university, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30:2, 137-162, DOI:10.1080/0260293042000264244

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Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

Vol. 30, No. 2, April 2005, pp. 137–162

ISSN 0260-2938 (print)/ISSN 1469-297X (online)/05/020137–26

© 2005 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/0260293042000264244

Factors associated with student

plagiarism in a post-1992 university

Roger Bennett*London Metropolitan University, UK TaylorandFrancisLtdCAEH300203.sgm10.1080/0260293042000264244Assessment&EvaluationinHigherEducation0260-2938(p rint)/1469-297X (online)OriginalArtic le2005Taylor&FrancisLtd302000000April [email protected]

A model intended to explain the incidence of plagiarism among undergraduates in the Business

Studies department of a post-1992 university was constructed and tested on a sample of 249

students completing Business Studies units at a post-1992 university in Greater London. It was

hypothesised that the occurrence of plagiarism could be predicted via three attitudinal consider-

ations (individual perceptions of the ethicality of the practice, fear of penalties if caught and fear of

failing a degree); two personal traits (goal orientation and academic integration), and three situa-

tional factors (financial, current grades achieved, and how strictly lecturing staff enforced anti-

plagiarism rules). Proposals concerning possible inter-relations and interactions among these

variables were also formulated and assessed.

Introduction

Most university teachers discourage students from engaging in plagiarism on the

grounds that the practice is fraudulent and deceptive, involves the theft of intellectual

property, and ‘conceals and misrepresents the originality of the true author’ (Clough,

2003, p. 2). Allegedly, moreover, plagiarism undermines the moral fibre of the perpe-

trator (people who admitted to cheating while at university have been found to be

more likely to commit dishonest acts in employment—Sims, 1995), and inhibits the

student’s intellectual development (Yeung et al., 2002). The habitual plagiarist does

not acquire the academic skills of analysis and evaluation, and will not learn how to

synthesise ideas or engage in rational argument. Instead the person simply replicates

the words of others without adding anything that is new.

Nature and incidence of plagiarism in higher education

Hannabuss (2001) defined plagiarism as ‘the unauthorised use or close imitation of

the ideas and language/expression of someone else’ and then the representation of this

*Department of Business and Service Sector Management, London Metropolitan University, 84

Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK. Email: [email protected].


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138 R. Bennett

work as the plagiarist’s own (p. 313). In the context of university education, however,

plagiarism does not have a single meaning and can range from the citation of a few

sentences without attribution through to the copying out of an entire manuscript.

Myers (1998) noted how plagiarism in the academic world ‘exists not in law as copy-

right does, but as institutional rules and regulations’ (p. 2). Hence, conventions relat-ing to what does and does not constitute plagiarism are formulated and interpreted

differently across institutions. Nevertheless, common themes emerge in most exposi-

tions of the construct, usually involving the notions of intent, deliberate deception and

failure to acknowledge sources (see Larkham & Manns, 2002, p. 340 for details).

As plagiarism covers a sizeable continuum ranging from ‘sloppy paraphrasing to

verbatim transcription with no crediting of the source’ (Larkham & Manns, 2002, p.

340), a number of authors have sought to distinguish between less and more serious

forms of the practice. ‘Minor plagiarism’ has been stated to comprise activities such

as cutting and pasting relatively small amounts of material from web pages without

acknowledgement (Davis, 2000), the reproduction of a sentence or two without

quotation marks and without a citation (Standler, 2000), paraphrasing without refer-

ences, and inventing fictitious references (Bjorklund & Wenestam (1999). Major

plagiarism, according to Standler (2000) occurs when ‘a significant fraction of the

entire work was written by someone else’ (p. 2). Standler (2000) noted however that

there was no legal distinction between major and minor forms of plagiarism. This was

unfortunate, Standler (2000) continued, because differences in the penalties imposed

for various levels of plagiarism could be very large, ranging from a mild rebuke to

permanent exclusion from an institution. Another explanation for researchers’ inter-

est in the distinction between major and minor plagiarism has been the observationof a substantially greater willingness among students to perpetrate minor as opposed

to major plagiarism (see Kuehn et al., 1990; Franklyn-Stokes & Newstead, 1995;

McCabe & Trevino, 1996; Newstead et al., 1996; Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999;

Davis, 2000). Possibly, students’ internal rationales for committing serious acts of

academic dishonesty differ from those resulting in minor offences (Kuehn et al.,

1990). Bjorklund and Wenestam (1999) suggested that minor plagiarism tended to

be far more ‘opportunistic in nature than deliberately planned’ (p. 4).

Irrespective of how plagiarism is defined, evidence appears to be emerging that its

incidence has risen sharply within several western countries. In Australia, forinstance, an investigation completed at Monash and Swinburne universities found

that nearly 80% of all the undergraduates and half the postgraduates surveyed were

willing to confess to having plagiarised in one way or another during their time at

college (Maslen, 2003). The most frequent forms of plagiarism were (1) the use of

unattributed material, and (2) the sharing of work with other students for assign-

ments that were supposed to be completed individually (see also McCabe & Trevino,

1996). Large increases in the prevalence of plagiarism have been documented in

Scandinavia (Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999), the United Kingdom (Larkham &

Manns, 2002; Furedi, 2003) and the USA (Allen et al., 1998; McKenzie, 1998).

Hammond’s (2002) survey of published estimates of rates of general academic cheat-ing (including plagiarism) in British universities between 1941 and 2001 revealed a


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Factors associated with student plagiarism 139

systematic upward trend. In the 1940s around 20–25% of all students were routinely

reported to have admitted to cheating in some way. By the 1990s the figure was typi-

cally 60–65%. Trends of a similar magnitude specifically concerning plagiarism have

been observed in other western nations (see Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999, p. 4),

though usually in relation to ‘non-serious’ offences (Franklyn-Stokes & Newstead,1995). Although the high figures currently cited for plagiarism may be due in part to

a greater willingness of students to confess (rather than to an intensification of the

practice per se —Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999), the outcomes to a steadily expanding

body of research literature suggest strongly that a substantial rise in university student

plagiarism has in fact taken place. Some of this literature is explored in the next

section.

Why students plagiarise

A major factor underlying the long-term upward trend in the incidence of plagiarism,

according to Larkham and Manns (2002), Maslen (2003) and others (see Bjorklund

& Wenestam, 1999), has been the introduction across the western academic world of

modularisation (and the increased sizes of teaching groups that it necessitates) in

conjunction with heavy reliance on written assignments during the academic year

(rather than end of unit examinations) as the primary means of student assessment.

Furedi (2003) in particular attributed the rise in rates of plagiarism that (supposedly)

have occurred in the UK to ‘the prevailing instrumentalist orientation’ that has come

to dominate approaches to teaching in British universities (p. 16). Manifestations of

the instrumentalist approach included the failure of lecturers to expect students toread textbooks, teachers circulating verbatim lecture notes, and ‘bullet point’ presen-

tations of material in lectures.

At the level of the individual student, three categories of variables are often

advanced to explain why certain individuals commit non-trivial plagiarism (assuming

that the student fully understands the meaning of the term in the first instance). The

three categories concern students’ personal circumstances, personal traits, and

whether the means and opportunity to plagiarise are readily to hand.

Means and opportunity

It has been alleged that the widespread availability of access to (1) the Internet, and

(2) online academic journals have contributed much to the rising incidence of plagia-

rism, as they have made it possible for students to find and save large amounts of infor-

mation from diverse sources with little reading, effort or originality (McKenzie,

1998). Also there now exist numerous Internet sites (some of which are free of charge)

that provide complete essay or term papers. Increasingly, the services of paid for sites

are customised and thus difficult to detect using conventional anti-plagiarism web-

crawling software (see Phillips & Horton, 2000). Maslen (2003) reported research

which concluded that each year as many as 500,000 essays submitted by Australianstudents contained text improperly copied from the Internet. More specifically, a


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140 R. Bennett

study of 1751 assignments from students of 17 subjects in six Australian universities

revealed that 400 web sources had been used without acknowledgement, including

five known ‘cheat sites’. One in eight students had borrowed at least 25% of their

essays from the Internet. It is relevant to note however that while the Internet

undoubtedly facilitates plagiarism, it does not, in the words of Furedi (2003), ‘possessthe moral power to incite otherwise honest students to cheat’ (p. 16).

Lack of enforcement by college lecturers of rules and procedures designed to

prevent plagiarism could encourage students to indulge in the practice (Davis et al.,

1992; Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), 2003) and apathy

among university faculty in this regard might be widespread (Davis et al., 1992;

Phillips & Horton, 2000). Bjorklund and Wenestam (1999) cited evidence suggesting

that around 20% of tutors ignore cases of obvious plagiarism, often because of the

stress and discomfort likely to result from dealing with the matter. Overall detection

rates, according to Bjorklund and Wenestam (1999), are typically less than 1.5%.

Establishing proof of a particular case can be difficult and time-consuming, the

lecturer involved may fear that he or she will not be supported by senior management

(Hammond, 2002), and even when miscreants are caught the penalties might be

trivial (Davis et al., 1992). Moreover, significant resource implications ensue from the

decision to pursue plagiarists diligently, especially during an end-of-semester ‘hand-

ing-in period’.

Personal traits

Internal beliefs that academic cheating is immoral and dishonest are known todiscourage plagiarism (Franklyn-Stokes & Newstead, 1995). Sutton and Huba

(1995) found that highly religious students were less likely to behave dishonestly

than others. However the strongest motive for cheating by students (according to

Bjorklund and Wenestam’s [1999] review of the literature on the subject) is the

desire to obtain high grades, which itself may depend on other considerations. Thus,

for example, the dishonest pursuit of good marks could be due to a person’s obses-

sive innate need to prove his or her worth to him or herself and/or to the world at

large (Davis et al., 1992; Lipson & MacGraven, 1993; Newstead et al., 1996;

Anderman et al., 1998), or to a pathological fear of failure (Baird, 1980; CWPA,2003). Haines et al. (1986) found that students with lower than average grade point

averages were more likely to plagiarise than their better performing classmates. Indi-

viduals who receive extensive financial support from their families and/or who are

under great parental pressure to succeed might be especially fearful of failure (and

hence be more inclined to plagiarise) (Haines et al., 1986). On the other hand,

according to Phillips and Horton (2000), parental support for college expenses

might have the capacity to ‘reduce the student’s personal involvement and responsi-

bility for the educational process’ (p. 151), leading to less rather than more concern

for sound academic performance.

Houle (1961) noted how certain students attend university in consequence of theirhaving a heavy ‘goal orientation’, manifest in the desire to achieve specific utilitarian


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outcomes such as enhanced job prospects and career development (as opposed to

wanting to study for the sheer enjoyment of learning). Also, ever-growing rates of

participation in higher education have generated a widening earnings gap between

those with and without qualifications (Archer, 2002). Possibly, the incentive to take

‘short cuts’ in order to succeed is greater among people with a pronounced goalorientation. In this vein, Davis et al. (1995) reported some (albeit limited) evidence

indicating that individuals whose behavioural and emotional styles were character-

ised by the aggressive struggle to achieve more in less time (often in competition with

other students) had a higher propensity to plagiarise than the rest of their contempo-

raries.

An intense fear of the punishment that a person could receive for plagiarism might

exert a negative influence on the inclination to engage in the practice (Haines et al.,

1986). However, Braumoeller and Gaines (2001) found that even the most dire

explicit warnings of punishment failed to discourage plagiarism among a sample of

180 political science students. On the other hand, informing students that their work

would be run through plagiarism detection software was a highly effective deterrent.

(A commercial plagiarism detection web crawler can trawl through around three

billion web pages and two or three thousand journals to check the similarity of a

student’s materials with web page sources—see Maslen, 2003). The severity of the

disruption to a student’s life caused by his or her losing a grade, by having to repeat

a unit or year, or ultimately by being expelled from an institution will be greater

perhaps for an individual who has already made heavy personal investments in

attending a degree programme. Such investments could include the time and effort

previously committed, as well as financial sacrifices.

Individual circumstances

Students who need to take paid employment to help finance their time at university

have less time for study (Larkham & Manns, 2002), and high academic workloads

may need to be compressed into their available study periods (Baird, 1980; Lipson &

MacGovern, 1993; Newstead et al., 1996). Sanders (2000) cited the results of a

MORI survey of 1068 students in 20 UK universities which found that the proportion

of students employed part-time during term-time had increased from 30% in 2001 to43% in 2002 (the proportion was 25% higher than average among students from

lower social classes). Arguably the time pressures created by the need for students to

take paid employment, in conjunction with the current emphasis on written within-

course assignments as the primary means of assessment, are likely to cause growing

numbers of students to resort to plagiarism. Furedi (2003) rejected this argument,

however, on the grounds that there was no evidence whatsoever that financially disad-

vantaged working class students cheated more frequently than people from comfort-

able middle class backgrounds.

Males have been found to be more ready to admit to academic dishonesty than

females (Haines et al., 1986; Davis & Ludvigson, 1995; Ameen et al., 1996; Bjorklund& Wenestam, 1999). Also, business studies students are allegedly more likely than


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142 R. Bennett

others to cheat (Phillips & Horton, 2000). Research completed in a number of coun-

tries has revealed heavily instrumental attitudes towards learning and teaching among

marketing, business and management students (see Bennett & Kottasz, 2001, p. 473

for details of relevant studies). Manifestations of such attitudes have been said to

include the desire for the rapid accumulation of knowledge, for ‘quick-fix’ teachingand learning methods, wanting to ‘learn how to do’, and preferring bullet point

approaches to the transmission of information. Orientations of this kind might be

compatible with the tendency to engage in plagiarism.

Academic integration

Caruana et al. (2000) found a connection between an individual’s lack of integra-

tion in academic life and his or her propensity to behave dishonestly. Calabrese

and Cochran (1990) similarly concluded that students who felt ‘alienated’ from

their courses or institutions were more inclined to cheat than students who were

better ‘integrated’ (especially in the social sense) with their universities. The

absence of social integration (evidenced by substandard academic performance

and poor relationships with fellow students and lecturers—see Saenz et al., 1999)

was associated with a lack of concern both for the rules of the institution and for

its objectives. A non-integrated individual did not feel any sense of cohesion with

the institution or a significant attachment to it (Caruana et al., 2000). Boredom

with a course and dissatisfaction with the institution frequently arose in these

circumstances (Davies, 2000). Consequently, the poorly integrated student might

come to view his or her course (and the conventions of academic documentationassociated with it) as personally unimportant (Haines et al., 1986; CWPA, 2003).

In extreme cases, dissatisfaction could lead to a desire to ‘punish’ the institution

for its perceived inadequacies. A plagiarist might even want to punish more able

fellow students simply because the latter are capable of superior academic perfor-

mance.

Academic integration implies that the student ‘fits in’ with university life and the

overall academic environment. Hence the individual feels that he or she is the

undergraduate ‘type’ of person (Kreger & Wrenn, 1990; Michie et al., 2001). Such a

student is more likely than others to possess realistic perceptions of the amount of work needed to complete a degree, and to be reasonably self-confident of his or her

ability to cope with work overload, examinations, financial pressures, and problems

created by lack of time for friends and family (see Michie et al., 2001 for details of

the academic literature supporting these propositions). Kreger and Wrenn (1990)

found that academic integration was significantly lower among people who had

experienced a gap between school and higher education. Michie et al. (2001) simi-

larly concluded that failure to integrate academically was more prevalent among

older (i.e., aged 22 or more) people especially those who had entered higher educa-

tion (HE) in consequence of ‘undesirable conditions’ (e.g., unemployment, divorce,

or wanting to ‘get out of the house’ to have a break from caring for young children)(p. 456).


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Other possible influences

Research completed by Davis and Ludvigson (1995) and by Anderman et al. (1998)

found that plagiarists began their careers early in their educational lives (and long

before their entry to university), so that the habit of plagiarism was well embedded

prior to their becoming undergraduates. Thus, a student’s experiences of plagiarism

(and its disciplinary consequences) at school and/or in Further Education (FE) might

affect subsequent behaviour at university (see Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999). Also

certain schools or FE colleges inculcate in their students effective study skills (e.g.,

regularly reviewing lecture notes, underlining passages in textbooks, preparing several

drafts of essays, using other students for peer support—see Stoynoff, 1996) that will

in the longer term result in better grades and hence less incentive to plagiarise. When

a person arrives at university, the example set by fellow students (and perhaps the

feeling that ‘everybody else does it, so why shouldn’t I?’) could encourage a person to

plagiarise (Newstead et al., 1996).In Australia, foreign students have been found to plagiarise to a greater extent than

home students (Maslen, 2003). Often, foreign students will be writing in an alien

language and may have been schooled in an intellectual tradition that does not frown

on copying (Myers, 1998; see also Larkham & Manns, 2002). Kuehn et al. (1990)

found that student attitudes towards academic cheating in general differed signifi-

cantly with respect to nationality.

The present study

Prior research in the plagiarism field has tended to focus on estimating the extents of

the practice in various institutions, and an explaining at the theoretical level why

plagiarism happens. Empirical work on the causes of plagiarism has been limited, and

has usually considered just one or two variables at a time. The investigation reported

in the present paper adds to contemporary knowledge about the antecedents of

plagiarism through the development of a structured equation model of plagiaristic

behaviour, followed by its testing on a sample of 249 students in a post-1992 univer-

sity located in Greater London. (In 1992 the British government converted all the

nation’s polytechnics into universities. Polytechnics were higher education institu-

tions that offered a wide range of vocational and academic courses and accepted

students from social backgrounds not traditionally associated with entry to university.

Polytechnic students typically possessed matriculation qualifications somewhat lower

than those demanded by the pre-1992 university sector.)

The hypothesised model

A model suggested by the above mentioned literature is outlined in Figure 1, which

explains plagiarism in terms of three attitudinal variables (perceptions regarding the

propriety of the practice, fear of punishment, and fear of failing a degree), twopersonal traits (goal orientation and academic integration), and three situational


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144 R. Bennett

variables (financial circumstances, academic performance, and whether university

staff strictly enforce anti-plagiarism regulations). An individual’s attitudes towards

plagiarism are posited to depend on past experiences at school or FE college, the

example set by other students, whether the student is enjoying his or her degree

programme, and whether the person is religious and/or ‘ethical’. The possession of effective study skills is assumed to enhance a student’s academic performance and to

reduce the fear of failure. It is hypothesised that students who feel they are under

heavy parental pressure to succeed at university are more fearful of failing their

degrees than others. Additionally it is suggested that people who have already

invested a great deal in becoming a student will be deterred from engaging in plagia-

rism by the prospect of losing a grade, a semester, a year, or even their entire degree

if they are caught cheating. Figure 1 does not show the possible influences of state

variables such as gender, age, or whether the person was an overseas student, as these

were examined separately.Figure1. Thehypothesisedmodel

Two moderating variables are proposed: (1) attitudes towards plagiarism, and (2)

the intensity with which anti-plagiarism rules are enforced. A moderating variable is

one that affects the strength of the relationship between two other variables, hence

producing an ‘interaction’ effect1. Accordingly, an independent variable that is

moderated by another variable will exert a high or low impact on the dependent vari-

able according to the value of the third (moderating) variable. Hence it is posited in

Figure 1 that, for instance, a student who experiences major financial difficulties will

be substantially more likely than otherwise would be the case to hand in plagiarised

work if it is also true that there is very little enforcement of university rules on plagia-

rism. Likewise, students who possess casual attitudes towards plagiarism are assumedto be more inclined to plagiarise if their academic grades are poor, if they have little

fear of the penalties for being caught plagiarising, and so on, as indicated in Figure 1.

Measurement of variables

Academic integration was measured by six items derived from Bennett’s (2003)

application of the construct to the explanation of student drop-out rates in a post-

1992 university. Examples of the items (see Bennett, 2003 for full details) are ‘I feel

I am a “natural” university student’; ‘I often feel lost and bewildered at university’(negatively scored) and ‘I have found it very easy to make friends at university’.

Thereafter the questions involved relations with lecturers, and the person’s level of

emotional attachment to his or her course2. The borrowed items were selected and

adapted via the application of the framework recommended by Engelland et al.

(2001). Thus, candidate items were examined to ensure that they fell well within the

scope of the domain of the relevant construct, that they expressed the theoretical

construct in an effective manner, were worded at an appropriate level of abstraction

and were compatible with the vocabulary of the target respondents, and were likely

to generate outcomes similar to those of the original studies from which the modified

items were taken. Two senior academics in the researcher’s home university indepen-dently assessed the adapted items in terms of these criteria. They also inspected the


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Experiences of the sacred in childhood 145

F i g u r e 1 .

T h e h y p o t h e s i s e d m o d e l


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146 R. Bennett

items that had not been taken from pre-existing scales vis-à-vis their clarity, relevance

to the particular issue being investigated and to the population of interest, and their

compatibility with the academic literature in the area (Churchill, 1979).

Four items were used to assess goal orientation, based on Boshier’s (1991) ‘educa-

tion participation scale’. Examples of the items are ‘I am only interested in learningthings that will help me in my future career’ and ‘I would do this degree for its intrin-

sic interest, even if it would not lead to a job and eventual financial benefits’ (nega-

tively scored). Unless specified otherwise (see below), all the questionnaire items

were quantified on five point scales: 5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly disagree.

Responses to the six items for academic integration were factor analysed, a single-

factor solution emerging (λ = 4.24, α = 0.87). This indicated that all the items were

measuring the same construct, so the six items were combined into a single academic

integration scale for use in subsequent analysis. The procedure was repeated for the

four goal orientation items, which again generated a uni-dimensional outcome (λ =

2.98, α = 0.84). Accordingly the four items were consolidated into a single measure.

The students were asked how many hours per week they spent in employment;

whether their family paid all, some, or none of their tuition fees; and whether their

need to work part-time ‘seriously disrupted’ their academic studies. It turned out

that 73% of the students in the sample were from families with incomes below the

threshold at which they would have to pay any fees whatsoever, and a further 12%

paid only partial fees. Thus the sample was relatively homogeneous in that most of

its members would have financial problems. Seventy-two per cent of the sample

worked in paid employment for more than ten hours a week (25% for more than 15

and 29% for more than 20 hours a week), so again there was relatively little varia-tion vis-à-vis this criterion. There were many disparities, however, in students’

assessments of the extents to which having to work part-time disrupted their studies,

and these assessments correlated meaningfully and significantly with many other

dimensions of the analysis. Hence this item was used as the ‘financial situation’

independent variable.

Three items evaluated the intensity with which college rules on plagiarism were

enforced by lecturers, i.e., whether (1) it was ‘easy to get away with’ plagiarism on the

student’s degree programme, (2) staff rarely bothered to check whether students’

efforts contained plagiarised materials, and (3) staff did not really care whether workhad been plagiarised. Responses to these items were highly intercorrelated (R>0.63),

and thus were composited into a single scale. Student attitudes concerning whether

plagiarism was or was not a serious misdemeanour were examined via four items

implied by the literature review completed by Bjorklund and Wenestam (1999);

namely whether the student believed that plagiarism was (1) fundamentally immoral,

dishonest and shameful, (2) no more serious than driving a little above the speed limit

in a car, (3) a natural and creative way of solving academic problems, and (4) a ‘really

major’ offence deserving stiff penalties. A factor analysis of the four items revealed

that it was acceptable to combine them into a single measure (λ = 3.1, α = 0.92).

Fear of failure was assessed through two highly correlated (R = 0.81), items,namely, (1) ‘the thought of my not obtaining my degree is just too awful for me to


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contemplate’, and (2) ‘failing my degree would be an absolute catastrophe for me’.

The two items were combined into a single scale. A student’s academic performance

was measured by a single item which asked the person whether, on average, his or her

grades were higher, lower or about the same as those of other students on the individ-

ual’s programme. This was of course a self-reported measure, but research previouslycompleted in the same university had recorded a high correlation (R = 0.72) between

responses to the same item and the actual performances of a sample of 140 students

(Bennett, 2003). It was not feasible to check definitive grades in the present study

because of the need to preserve the student’s anonymity. The intensity of a person’s

fear of the penalties for being caught plagiarising was evaluated through two items:

(1) ‘I am terrified of what would happen to me if I were caught plagiarising’, and (2)

‘the penalties here for plagiarism are so severe that it is simply not worth taking the

risk’. As the responses to the two items were significantly correlated (R = 0.81), they

were combined into a single scale.

‘Religiosity’ was evaluated by asking the student whether he or she was ‘a very

religious person’ (five point scale). The student’s overall ethical stance was

measured using four items from various business ethics measures reported by

Bruner and Hensel (1994), i.e., ‘stretching the truth can never be justified no matter

what the circumstances’, ‘honesty and moral integrity are key principles in my life’;

‘it is absolutely essential that students always follow all university rules and regula-

tions’; and ‘in order to succeed it is sometimes acceptable to behave unethically and

to take unfair advantage’. A factor analysis of the four items generated a single factor

solution (λ = 2.79, α = 0.81) so the items were consolidated to form a single

measure. Peer influences vis-à-vis plagiarism were assessed by two stand aloneitems: ‘everybody else on my course plagiarises to some extent or other, so why

shouldn’t I?’ and ‘I know a lot of students who plagiarise’. A person’s response to

the first of these items does not imply any particular pattern of response to the

second, so the items were not consolidated. The students were also asked to tick off

a category to indicate their opinion of the percentage of all their fellow students that

engaged in plagiarism (less than 5%; 6%–10%, etc., through to ‘more than 75%’).

The respondent’s satisfaction with his or her degree programme was measured by

three (highly intercorrelated, R>0.77) items adapted from Oliver’s (1993) ‘satisfac-

tion with a course’ instrument, i.e., ‘doing this course has been an excellent experi-ence for me’, ‘the teaching and the educational facilities here are excellent’, and ‘this

is one of the best courses I could possibly have taken’. The three items were

composited into a single scale.

A student’s prior experience of plagiarism at school or FE college was evaluated

by two (not significantly correlated) items that asked (five point scales) whether

plagiarism was ‘commonplace’ at the person’s previous institution, and whether

teachers at that institution ‘did not really care’ whether students’ work was plagia-

rised. The two items were entered separately in the subsequent analysis. Parental

pressure was assessed by two stand alone items (which were not significantly corre-

lated): ‘my parents are putting heavy pressure on me to succeed at university’, and‘my parents would be devastated if I were not to complete my degree’. Four items


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148 R. Bennett

were employed to measure the effectiveness of a student’s study skills, based on the

suggestions of Stoynoff (1996); namely whether the person (1) took detailed notes

of lectures, (2) read, reread and reviewed course learning materials very regularly,

(3) prepared several drafts of essays before handing them in, and (4) believed he or

she possessed ‘excellent study habits and skills’. All four items loaded significantlyonto the same factor in a factor analysis (λ = 3.01, α = 0.91) and thus were

composited into a single scale. The level of an individual’s past investment in his or

her university role was assessed through three items suggested by Meyer et al.

(1993), i.e., ‘I have invested so much in being a university student that it would be

a disaster for me if I were to leave now’; ‘I have had to make huge personal sacri-

fices in order to become a university student’; and ‘my family has invested a great

deal of money in sending me to university and supporting me during my time at

university’. The first two of these items were significantly correlated (R = 0.72)

with each other, but not with the third item, which was used as a separate entity in

subsequent analysis.

The dependent variable

Students were asked to indicate on a five point scale (very often, often, occasionally,

just once or twice, never) how frequently they had engaged in various activities that

might be construed as plagiarism. Specifically (following Caruana et al., 2000) the

student was presented with the following statement and options:

I have copied and inserted into my own work, without acknowledgement of where thematerial came from, the following taken from published sources, from the Internet or from

the work of other students:

(a) a couple of sentences;

(b) several sentences;

(c) a paragraph;

(d) a number of paragraphs;

(e) an entire piece of work.

Then the person ticked off how frequently each of the above had occurred. Further

questions asked whether the person had (1) collaborated with other students onassignments that should have been completed individually, (very often, often, occa-

sionally, etc.), and (2) made up references.

The procedure adopted required the self-reporting of misbehaviour, so that a priori

the respondents might be expected to understate the extents of their dishonesty.

There is evidence to suggest, however, that self-reports of acts of academic dishonesty

are reasonably accurate (Allen et al., 1998), and under-reporting does not appear to

have presented a major problem in previous investigations (for details see Franklyn-

Stokes & Newstead, 1995; Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999). Indeed, Caruana et al.

(2000) reported ‘fairly high’ mean scores in response to the ‘serious plagiarism’

section of their questionnaire (p. 28), indicating a substantial willingness to confessto dishonest behaviour.


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The sample

A questionnaire containing the above-mentioned items plus some general queries

concerning the individual’s age, gender, programme of study, etc. (though not

including anything that might identify the student) was drafted consequent to a

review of relevant literature and pre-tested via (1) discussions with three experi-

enced researchers in the educational field, and (2) a trial administration to a class of

41 second year students. (The class was arbitrarily selected as the first of the after-

noon in the first lecture theatre on the first floor of the university campus in which

the researcher’s office was located.) This pre-test facilitated the refinement of the

draft questionnaire and the clarification of ambiguities. The final version of the

questionnaire was then distributed to 327 second, third and fourth year students

completing business units at a post-1992 university in Greater London. Second year

students upwards were selected on the grounds that they would have substantial

experience of relevant matters within the university. Documents were completedduring class and were collected by students who then shuffled them out of sight of

the lecturer in order to ensure total anonymity. All classes taking place over a two-

week period in the business department in one of the university’s main campuses

and whose class teacher agreed to participate in the exercise were covered, repre-

senting 82% of all students undertaking business units in the building. Two

hundred and forty-nine usable responses were obtained, of which 159 were from

business majors.

Sixty-eight per cent of the respondents classified themselves as non-white; 58%

were male and just 13% were from overseas. Sixty per cent were aged 21 years or

over; 60% had entered via BTEC, GNVQ or Access Course qualifications. (It was in

fact quite difficult to measure entry qualifications as such, because a large number of

the students possessed a mix of qualifications, e.g., a GNVQ plus one low grade ‘A’

level, although at least half were known to have used a BTEC certificate or GNVQ to

gain entry.) More than 90% of the British (rather than overseas) respondents were

living at home with their immediate family or with a partner. All the students in the

sample should in principle have been fully aware of the meaning of plagiarism. Unit

handbooks carry definitions of the term and cite examples. The topic is covered

explicitly in the student’s first year as part of a lecture and in classes on how to refer-

ence sources. Thereafter tutors are expected to explain clearly how the concept relatesto specific subject areas.

Analysis of the data

Descriptive results

Less than a majority of the students (46%) agreed or strongly agreed with the state-

ment that plagiarism was ‘fundamentally immoral and shameful’, yet a large number

of the respondents engaged in the practice (see Table 1). Forty-six per cent admit-

ted to having copied an entire paragraph into their own work without acknowledge-ment; 31% to having lifted several paragraphs from an unacknowledged source; and


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150 R. Bennett

25% to having handed in a complete piece of work that had been copied (16% of

the sample confessed to having done this more than ‘once or twice’). The figures

listed in Table 1 correspond broadly to the findings of previous surveys completed

in the field, i.e., that it is likely that up to 80% of students plagiarise to some extent

(Hammond, 2002; Maslen, 2003), and that around a quarter copy full paragraphs

(Maslen, 2003). Respondents’ opinions concerning the percentage of the total

student body that engaged in plagiarism varied substantially. A third thought that

less than eleven per cent of all students handed in plagiarised work; 25% believedthe true figure exceeded 35%. Most of the students (57%) disagreed or strongly

disagreed with the proposition that lecturers ‘rarely bothered’ to check whether

students’ work contained plagiarised materials; 72% did not believe that it was ‘easy

to get away with plagiarism’; and 75% disagreed/strongly disagreed with a statement

worded ‘the lecturing staff do not really care whether work has been plagiarised’.

The latter outcome is in line with Bjorklund and Wenestam’s (1999) suggestion that

around a fifth of all lecturers may ignore (or at least not take too seriously) plagia-

rised submissions, but it fails to support the notion that there is widespread apathy

towards the problem among teaching staff (cf. Davis et al., 1992; Phillips & Horton,2000).

Table 2 lists some key statistics that offer an insight into certain key traits and opin-

ions among the students in the sample. Fifteen per cent of the responses fell in the

strongly agree/agree categories of the academic integration composite, indicating

poor academic integration as the item was scored negatively. A bare majority of the

sample was goal orientated. More than a third of the students believed that having to

work part time in paid employment seriously disrupted their studies. Overall, the

students in the sample did not have particularly ethical stances (Table 2 item [g]),

though half felt that plagiarism was unethical (item [d]). Thirty per cent of the

students’ responses fell in the bottom two categories of the composite measuring theeffectiveness of a person’s study skills (item [i]).

Table 1. Frequency of plagiarism

Percentages

5 4 3 2 1 Mean Standard

deviation

Skewness

(Z-value)A couple of sentences 12 14 26 28 20 2.69 1.29 1.13

Several sentences 2 14 32 23 29 2.36 1.10 0.64

A single paragraph 4 2 17 23 54 1.77 1.03 4.36

A number of paragraphs 2 4 11 14 69 1.45 0.82 5.57

An entire piece of work 2 9 5 9 75 1.26 0.69 8.28

Has collaborated with other students on work

supposed to be completed individually

5 5 27 24 39 2.12 1.04 1.09

Has made up references 5 8 20 20 47 2.40 1.02 3.97

Key: 5 = very often, 4 = often, 3 = occasionally, 2 = just once or twice, 1 = never.


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Test of the model

It can be seen from Tables 1 and 2 that several of the variables in the hypothesised

model depicted in Figure 1 were not normally distributed. Hence the model was esti-mated using the method of partial least squares (specifically the PLS Graph Package

Version 3 (Chin, 2001)), which makes no pre-assumptions about the statistical distri-

butions of variables3. Significant relationships were identified through an experimen-

tal procedure whereby all the candidate independent variables were entered in

regression equations, firstly in total, thereafter in various combinations. An indepen-

dent variable was removed if it failed to attain significance at the 0.05 level in any

configuration of independent variables. The data was also examined for significant

differences with respect to gender, age, programme of study, ethnicity, and whether

the student was from overseas. No meaningfully significant differences (p = 0.05 or

below) were detected vis-à-vis any of these considerations. This pre-analysis soon

revealed that two model estimations were necessary: one for minor plagiarism and

another for major plagiarism. Students’ responses regarding the frequency with which

they plagiarised ‘a couple of sentences’ were highly correlated (R = 0.77) with their

replies vis-à-vis plagiarising several sentences. Hence the two items were combined

into a single scale to measure the incidence of minor plagiarism. This scale correlated

significantly with the frequencies with which the students in the sample made up ficti-

tious references (R = 0.63) and with the incidence of collaboration with other

students on work that should have been completed individually (R = 0.68). Hence

the newly constructed minor plagiarism scale represented a reasonable proxy for theseother two variables. Major plagiarism was measured as the combination of the

Table 2. Key statistics

Percentages

SA A N D SD Mean Standard

deviation

Skewness

(Z-value)(a) Academic integration composite (scored

negatively)

5 10 21 45 19 2.47 1.70 13.33

(b) Goal orientation composite 12 40 15 25 8 3.42 1.04 0.56

(c) ‘Having to work part-time seriously

disrupts my studies’

12 22 27 31 8 2.97 1.12 0.76

(d) Composite concerning whether

plagiarism is regarded as unethical

15 35 32 9 9 3.60 1.02 3.18

(e) Fearful of failing a degree 30 40 10 10 10 3.93 1.08 3.92

(f) Fearful of the penalties resulting

from being caught plagiarising

27 28 30 7 8 3.67 1.11 1.84

(g) Ethical stance composite 6 10 42 29 13 2.64 1.01 0.80

(h) Satisfaction with course composite 15 30 29 18 8 3.20 1.18 1.05

(i) Effectiveness of study skills composite 9 22 39 22 8 3.10 0.99 0.26

Key: SA = strongly agree, A = agree, N = neither agree nor disagree, D = disagree, SD = strongly disagree


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152 R. Bennett

students’ responses to the two questionnaire items concerning the frequencies with

which the person plagiarised ‘a number of paragraphs’ and ‘an entire piece of work’.

There was a high correlation between these items (R = 0.81), meaning that individ-

uals who often copied a number of paragraphs without acknowledgement were also

extremely likely to copy an entire piece of work. (The pattern of the results from thehypothesis tests were the same when the models were re-estimated using the two

items as stand alone variables rather than as a composite. This was also true of the

two items in the minor plagiarism composite.) Significant pathways are shown in

Figures 2 and 3; associated parameter estimates are listed in Table 3.

Minor plagiarism was significantly associated with many but not all of the variables

depicted in the initial hypothesised model. However, past experiences at school or in

FE and peer group influences failed to exert an impact. The strongest effects on the

incidence of minor plagiarism were a person’s attitude towards the practice (i.e.,

whether it was seen as fundamentally improper), and the degree of an individual’s

academic integration. Students whose part time employment interfered with their

studies; who were obtaining low grades and/or were under heavy parental pressure to

succeed were more likely to plagiarise at the minor level than others. High levels of

goal orientation were also a significant determinant of decisions to plagiarise. A

person’s attitudes towards plagiarism were significantly influenced by his or her over-

all moral position (though not by religiosity). As expected, ineffective study skills

contributed to low grades and, it turned out, were directly connected with poor

academic integration. Two significant interaction terms were identified, indicated as

M1 and M2 in Figure 2. Firstly it emerged that students with a lax attitude towards

plagiarism and whose part time paid employment was interfering with their studieswere especially likely to plagiarise (M1). Secondly, the impact of low grades on the

tendency to plagiarise was substantially higher among students with a lax attitude

towards plagiarism issues (M2).Figure2. Determinantsofminorplagiarism

Figure 3 shows that major plagiarism was explained by a smaller number of

variables than was the case for minor plagiarism, and three of these variables did

not appear in Figure 2. Fear of failing a course encouraged major plagiarism; fear

of the penalties that might be imposed if a person was caught discouraged

students from engaging in the practice. As with minor plagiarism, lax attitudes

and lack of academic integration exerted significant influences on serious plagiaris-tic activities, However, when the connections between (1) the extent of major

plagiarism, and (2) the individual items of the academic integration composite

were examined in detail an unanticipated outcome was discovered. Students who

reported that they had excellent relationships with their lecturers confessed to

engaging in major plagiarism to a substantially greater extent than others. Hence

this item was taken out of the academic integration composite and thereafter

regarded as a stand alone variable in its own right. As an independent variable,

the item had a highly significant impact on the incidence of major plagiarism. It

seems, therefore, that students who enjoyed friendly personal relationships with

their lecturers also felt that serious plagiarism would either be overlooked, or notresult in serious penalties.


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Experiences of the sacred in childhood 153

F i g u r e 2 .

D e t e r m

i n a n t s o f m i n o r p l a g i a r i s m


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154 H-G. Heimbrock

F i g u r e 3 .

D e t e r m

i n a n t s o f m a j o r p l a g i a r i s m


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Figure3. Determinantsofmajorplagiarism

Conclusion and discussion

The students in the sample were drawn mainly from families at the bottom end of the

UK distribution of incomes and belonged to ethnic groups that represent minorities

within the UK population as a whole. Most of the respondents had entered university

on the basis of the minimum academic qualifications permissible under the British

matriculation system. It emerged that some of the factors that were significantly asso-

ciated with the incidence of plagiarism among these students differed according to the

level of the plagiarism involved, implying that it is not appropriate to apply a singleset of policies when attempting to reduce the occurrence of the practice. Clearly,

Table 3. Standardised parameter estimates*

Minor plagiarism

Major

plagiarism

Dependent variable Explanatory variablesExtent of plagiarism Goal orientation 0.23

(2.91)

Academic integration −0.33

(6.55)

−0.28

(5.53)

Financial situation −0.21

(3.48)

Academic performance** −0.22

(3.02)

Parental pressure 0.20

(2.77)

Attitude towards plagiarism −0.46(8.76)

−0.50(11.66)

M1 2.90

(6.13)

M2 3.12

(7.07)

Relationships with staff 0.19

(2.04)

Fear of failure 0.39

(4.61)

Fear of penalties if caught −0.22

(3.99)

Academic integration Effectiveness of personal

study skills

0.19

(2.04)

0.28

(3.77)

Attitudes towards plagiarism Ethical position 0.52

(11.64)

0.67

(12.49)

Academic performance Effectiveness of personal

study skills

0.21

(2.98)

*T-values in parentheses. These were obtained via the jack-knifing facility available on PLS Graph Version 3.

**Excludes the item concerning relationships with members of the academic staff.


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156 R. Bennett

there is little point in tackling an outbreak of plagiarism via the intensification of

measures that are not relevant to the level of plagiarism in question.

Nevertheless, certain variables were connected with the likelihood that a student

would plagiarise at both the major and minor levels, presumably because of the

reasons cited in the prior literature in the field as previously outlined. Individualspossessing innately ‘ethical’ moral positions disapproved of plagiarism to a greater

extent than others, and were substantially less likely to hand in plagiarised work (cf.

Franklyn-Stokes & Newstead, 1995). Perhaps therefore there is a need for university

staff to address forcefully the issue of academic integrity during introductory

programmes and to explain clearly and sympathetically the objective need for honesty

in academic life. Concomitantly, the second common factor underlying both major

and minor plagiarism, i.e., lack of academic integration, must be confronted at the

earliest possible opportunity (see Calabrese & Cochran, 1990; Caruana et al., 2000).

A significant minority of the respondents reported that they felt ‘lost and bewildered’

at university, implying that academic integration was a major issue so far as these indi-

viduals were concerned. Academic integration is strongly associated with a person’s

perception that it is somehow ‘natural’ and fundamentally ‘right and proper’ for the

individual to be a university undergraduate. Such perceptions are less common

perhaps among ‘non-traditional’ students. It follows that first year (preferably first

semester) courses should aim to make ‘non-traditional’ students feel ‘at home’ in an

academic environment and to believe that a university education is a natural experi-

ence for people from all sorts of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Poor

study skills comprised the third common factor applicable to both major and minor

plagiarism (see Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999). Ineffective study skills were associ-ated with substandard academic performance, lack of academic integration, and the

tendency to plagiarise. Again, this suggests the desirability of concentrating resources

on the development of study skills at the very start of a degree programme.

The level of a student’s satisfaction with his or her degree course did not impact

significantly on either major or minor plagiarism. Individuals who were highly satis-

fied with the education they were receiving were just as likely to plagiarise as people

who were dissatisfied. This finding might be explained, perhaps, by the fact that

dissatisfied students can be just as able, hard-working, and ‘ethical’ as individuals

who are highly satisfied with their course. Thus, academic ability and personal ethicalintegrity might have exerted influences that outweighed the potential effects of the

satisfaction variable on the propensity to plagiarise. For instance, a dissatisfied

student could have held deep moral principles that prevented the person from cheat-

ing, even if he or she inwardly wished to ‘punish’ the university (through plagiarising)

for having been the cause of the student’s dissatisfaction. Equally, a student’s age,

extent of past investment in getting to and attending university, and prior experiences

at school or FE college did not appear to be connected with the decision to plagiarise.

As regards the non-significance of a student’s age in the present analysis, it should be

noted that a substantial majority of the students in the sample (60%) were over 21

years of age. It is likely therefore that the average age of the individuals in this partic-ular sample was considerably higher than the average ages of the students included in


22/27


earlier investigations in the plagiarism field. (Unfortunately few of these other studies

provided precise details of the age structures of their samples.) Hence it is possible

that there was insufficient variation in the data to enable all potential associations

between age and the two dependent variables to be uncovered. The same consider-

ation might explain the statistical insignificance of the variable measuring the extentof a person’s past investment in getting into university. In financial and most other

socio-economic terms the sample was substantially homogeneous, so that the

students’ past experiences and levels of effort devoted to gaining matriculation qual-

ifications were likely to have been very similar, again resulting in a paucity of mean-

ingful variation in the data relating to this variable. Likewise, the great majority of the

students in the sample would have attended the same kinds of schools in geographical

areas with similar characteristics and thus would have had comparable experiences of

school or FE college prior to entering university.

Another variable that failed to attain significance was the intensity with which

lecturers enforced university rules on plagiarism. As previously stated, most students

believed that their lecturers were quite strict on enforcement, although there was little

evidence of this affecting students’ behaviour. One possible reason for the lack of

significance of the enforcement variable could be that because the students were

taught in large groups in a generally impersonal manner, many of them might not

have believed that their lecturers were key players in the disciplinary (rather than

administrative) process. Lecturers ‘enforce’ rules in that they report alleged cases of

plagiarism, but the rules themselves, investigative procedures, and the penalties for

engaging in plagiarism are determined by the institution. The documentation distrib-

uted to students about plagiarism come from the university, not from individuallecturers. Therefore, institutional considerations might have been at the forefront of

students’ minds when deciding whether and how seriously to plagiarise.

Major plagiarism appeared to be driven more by fear of failure (cf. Baird, 1980;

CWPA, 2003) mitigated by fear of punishment (confirming the findings of Haines et

al., 1986 but refuting the suggestions of Braumoeller & Gaines, 2001) than by the

desire to succeed (see Bjorklund & Wenestam, 1999). This result was due presum-

ably to the large difference in the probable consequences of major and minor plagia-

rism; which can range from a reprimand and having to redo a piece of work in the

latter case, to the loss of a full year or to expulsion following a serious offence. Astudent’s fear of failure might be confronted by explaining to the person at an early

point in his or her academic career that doing badly in an assignment or examination

can be a positive and useful experience that identifies areas of weakness to which the

person needs to direct his or her attention. Whereas the degree of the strictness with

which faculty enforced university rules on plagiarism did not generally affect respon-

dents’ behaviour, the existence of severe penalties did seem to deter major plagiarism

(cf. Larkham & Manns, 2002). An unexpected result concerning major plagiarism

was that students who reported that they had excellent relationships with their lectur-

ers were more likely to plagiarise than others. This contradicts the conclusion of

Saenz et al. (1999), who alleged that students with poor relationships with academicstaff were more inclined to plagiarise. Accordingly, it may be that lecturers need to be


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158 R. Bennett

extremely careful to ensure that their overt attempts at being close to and friendly

towards students do not induce the latter to believe that acts of plagiarism will be

ignored or automatically forgiven. Possibly staff who ‘court popularity’ with students

are prone to attract the attentions of major, though seemingly not minor, plagiarists.

It is not entirely clear why this should be the case. The results clearly indicatedhowever that a dishonest student’s expectation of being able to get away with a serious

act of plagiarism increased as the person’s relationship with a lecturer deepened.

Additional research is needed into this matter.

Minor plagiarism was associated with a wider range of variables than major

plagiarism, including poor academic performance, parental pressure, financial situ-

ation (in terms of whether having to undertake paid employment interfered with

the student’s academic work), and goal orientation. The strength of the link

between low grades and minor plagiarism could be reduced, perhaps, by explaining

to incoming students that the results of assessments offer valuable information vis-

à-vis how the student is progressing and the areas in which more work is necessary.

The fact that accurate grades (i.e., those that have not been distorted by plagia-

rism) indicate a person’s progress in a particular subject relative to (1) other people

in his or her year, and (2) the individual’s own expectations, must be clearly eluci-

dated. Students need to be made to understand the fundamental purposes of in-

course assessment at the outsets of their academic careers. Equally, lecturers must

emphasise to students that the (reasonable) desire to attain utilitarian employment-

related objectives must not compromise academic integrity. The fact that acts of

dishonesty committed in employment situations lead to dire consequences must be

pointed out.In contrast to the situation pertaining to minor plagiarism, the incidence of more

serious forms of the practice was not affected by goal orientation. Possibly, there-

fore, students’ desires to improve their job and career prospects by obtaining a

better degree might in some cases impel them to engage in minor acts of plagia-

rism, where the probability of detection and the consequent penalties are small.

However, students with high levels of goal orientation may be extremely averse to

the risk of disrupting their career plans through being caught in major acts of

plagiarism that are likely to result in the loss of an entire grade, a semester, or in

expulsion. Similarly, the non-significance of parental pressure in relation to majorplagiarism could be due to the fact that a student’s parents would almost certainly

find out if the individual were suspended or expelled from university, yet would be

unlikely to learn about a small penalty imposed for a minor offence. Hence the

desire to please parents through obtaining higher grades via major plagiarism might

be offset by fear of the consequences of discovery. Students whose academic grades

were poor were inclined to indulge in minor but not in major plagiarism. It seems

plausible to suppose that the academically weak are sometimes more prone to take

‘short cuts’ by plagiarising in order to improve their performances. Nevertheless,

the willingness to take these dishonest shortcuts did not apply when the danger of

incurring severe penalties consequent to major acts of cheating was present. Finan-cial hardship was another variable associated only with minor plagiarism. It is


24/27


appropriate to note in this connection that students with financial difficulties typi-

cally spend more hours in paid employment than better-off individuals, and thus

may experience greater temptations to take short-cuts in their academic work via

minor plagiarism. At the same time, the prospect of losing a semester or year

through being caught consequent to an act of major plagiarism may be consider-ably more daunting to an indigent student than to others. A-priori , therefore, the

absence of a positive and significant link between financial hardship and major

plagiarism is not entirely surprising.

Parental pressure on a student to succeed at university is an exogenous factor

beyond institutional control. Further research is needed into the antecedents and

consequences of this variable, particularly in situations where, as in the university

in which the research was completed, the majority of undergraduate students are

from ethnic minorities and usually comprise the first generation of their families to

attend university (parental pressure to do well might be intense in these circum-

stances). Financial pressures on students represent another exogenous situation

that a university cannot regulate. Nevertheless, the significance of the link between

financial hardship and minor plagiarism is disturbing, and confirms the findings of

numerous previous studies (see above) that have alleged the existence of a connec-

tion between students having to spend many hours in paid employment and their

tendency to plagiarise. Students from families that offer them enough financial

support to enable them to avoid having to spend many hours in paid employment

will have more time available to devote to their studies. In the present investiga-

tion however there were no significant correlations between the number of hours

worked and (1) academic performance, or (2) academic integration. Interestingly,there was a significant negative connection (R = −0.39) between hours worked

and satisfaction with a course: dissatisfied students allocated more of their avail-

able time to paid employment. The relationship between time spent in employ-

ment and satisfaction with a course is a further area that is worthy of additional

investigation.

Notes

1. If Y = bX where b = a + cZ, then Y = (a + cZ) X, i.e., Y = aX + c(ZX). Hence a significant

regression coefficient on the new variable formed by multiplying Z and X indicates the presence

of an interaction effect. As is conventional, the interaction variables were mean centred to

reduce possible problems caused by multicollinearity.

2. A copy of the full questionnaire is available from the author.

3. PLS Graph 3 calculates the standard errors on parameter estimates using a bootstrapping

procedure. Although most of the variables involved five-point categorical data, it is assumed

(in line with most other research using attitudinal data—see Allison, 1999, p.10) that the

difference in the strength of agreement between, for example, points one and two on a scale

is comparable to the difference between points four and five. This is regarded as a reason-

able approximation in the present circumstances. Allison (1999) described the effects of

employing ordinal scales in linear regression as ‘innocuous’ in the absence of a priori

grounds for believing that non-linear responses should apply within particular divisions of a

scale.


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160 R. Bennett

Notes on contributor

Roger Bennett is a Professor in the Department of Business and Service Sector

Management at London Metropolitan University. His main research interests

are in the fields of marketing and business management, particularly in relation

to non-profit organisations. Additionally Roger has completed a number of

investigations in the area of educational research, focusing on issues concerning

student retention and motivation. Roger is the author of many books and a large

number of journal articles on various aspects of business studies.

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Allison, P. (1999) Multiple regression: a primer (London, Sage).Ameen, E., Guffey, D. & McMillan, J. (1996) Gender differences in determining the ethical sensi-

tivity of future accounting professionals, Journal of Business Ethics, 15(5), 591–597.

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