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Academic Dishonesty at Universities: The Case of Plagiarism Among Iranian Language Students

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Abstract

This study investigated Iranian language students’ perception of and familiarity with plagiarism, their attitudes toward their professors regarding this issue, and their reasons for doing so. The participants were 122 undergraduate and graduate language students in Translation, Literature, TEFL, and Linguistics who filled out a validated and piloted questionnaire. Overall, the results indicated that students had different views about the definition of plagiarism and plagiarism was mostly perceived by students as using someone else’s words as if they were their own rather than taking someone’s ideas without permission. It was also found that in their academic career, students mostly consider copying a completed assignment of their friend as an act of academic dishonesty. In addition, they mostly argued that professors at universities guess about who might have done plagiarism instead of checking it themselves and they used different strategies to detect plagiarism. The study also indicated that Iranian students had different reasons for plagiarism but they mostly plagiarize because of easiness of plagiarism. Finally, the results of the survey showed that the majority learned about plagiarism from their university professors.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to offer our heartfelt thanks to those without whom this research would not have been possible. Many people have contributed to this research study, and we are sincerely grateful to all of them for their guidance, insight, and support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Languages and Linguistics Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Atefeh Rezanejad & Saeed Rezaei

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  1. Atefeh Rezanejad
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  2. Saeed Rezaei
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Correspondence to Saeed Rezaei.

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Rezanejad, A., Rezaei, S. Academic Dishonesty at Universities: The Case of Plagiarism Among Iranian Language Students. J Acad Ethics 11, 275–295 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-013-9193-8

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