Plagiarism and international students in higher education
An increasing number of students study outside their home country, over 5.3 million students globally in 2019, many of whom are PG students (Institute of International Education, 2019). In the context of internationalization of higher education, managing plagiarism is perceived as a significant challenge facing Western higher education institutions (e.g., Bretag, 2013; Heitman & Litewka, 2011). Writing and referencing are challenging for international students because they transfer to a new academic context (Adhikari, 2018; Leask, 2006), and for many of them, English is a second or foreign language (Franken, 2013; Marshall & Garry, 2006; Pecorari, 2016). The literature reflects an ongoing examination of whether international students in general plagiarize more than domestic students and to what extent their understanding of conventions and expectations of academic writing differ. However, scholarship that illuminates knowledge related to PG students is very limited. Apart from this gap in the literature, an ongoing debate in the field relates to links between culture and plagiarism.
Culture is a recurring topic within debate about the nature of links between culture and plagiarism by international students. Zobel and Hamilton (2002) found an association between rote-learning habits and UG students’ perceived seriousness of plagiarism and Sowden (2005) argued that practices of multilingual students (e.g., communal ownership of knowledge, copying and reproducing practices) were in conflict with Western values related to plagiarism. However, Phan (2006) disputed an association between cultures and plagiarism attitudes, emphasizing that plagiarism was unacceptable in Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese students’ memorization practices were unrelated to plagiarism. Liu (2005) reviewed books showing that plagiarism was prohibited in China, highlighting how stereotypes of non-Western cultures have led to inaccurate ideas about international students. Culture, while clearly important with regard to student preferences and experiences, cannot be regarded as a simple explanation for plagiarism behaviour, and its use raises questions about implicit bias in the treatment of students from different cultures.
Various determinants of plagiarism, other than simply cultural ones, have been identified. Some scholars suggest that language proficiency and experiences might substantially affect student practices, both as writers and in avoiding plagiarism (Marshall & Garry, 2006; Tran, 2012). Tasks requiring engaging with source materials can be doubly difficult for students with limited language resources (Schmitt, 2005). NESB students might engage in patch-writing when producing academic work (Pecorari, 2016). Educational background – educational approaches, writing practices and assessment methods – may impact students’ knowledge, perceptions and experience of plagiarism (Adhikari, 2018; Marshall & Garry, 2006). These studies suggest that substantive issues in understanding plagiarism are experienced by all groups of students and processes that are responsive to specific groups (e.g., students from particular cultures or levels of study) would be more effective than initiatives aimed at the entire student population as if it was homogeneous.
Awareness of the limitations of cultural explanations of student plagiarism has seen attention shift to an alternative approach focused on understanding the issue beyond purely cultural influences. Scholars highlight the need for a holistic stance towards plagiarism by international students. Leask (2006) asserted that stereotyping Asian students as more susceptible to plagiarism hinders effective responses to the issue. Universities need to take into consideration the diversity of student backgrounds and employ rehabilitative as opposed to harsh punitive approaches to plagiarism management (Adam et al., 2016; Green et al., 2006; Marshall & Garry, 2005). Some suggest making plagiarism rules explicit to students, increasing their awareness of academic integrity and providing them with academic skills, rather than policing and punishing (Adhikari, 2018; Marshall & Garry, 2005; Gullifer & Tyson, 2010).
These remarks highlight the contributions of this study which attempted to explore how PG students from diverse educational, cultural and linguistic backgrounds differed in their understanding of plagiarism and factors associated with variations in their perceptions.
Domestic and international students’ perceptions of plagiarism
A growing body of empirical research has examined domestic and international students’ perceptions of plagiarism, revealing differences in perceptions between these two student cohorts, but most of these relate to UG students. This scholarship provides a body of knowledge that is a point of consideration for the examination of the PG student experience.
Many international UG students possessed superficial understanding of plagiarism and referencing conventions, as demonstrated by Stappenbelt’s (2012) study of first-year international UG students in Australia and Bamford and Sergiou’s (2005) research in the UK. Local UG students in Australia (Gullifer & Tyson, 2014) and the USA (Shi, 2004), in contrast, had better awareness of plagiarism and academic writing conventions. In a cross-cultural comparison study, Rinnert and Kobayashi (2005) revealed that American UG students were more likely than their Japanese counterparts to view plagiarism as unethical and showed greater awareness of the importance of acknowledging sources. Most Asian international students in a UK study did not view copying from textbooks as cheating (Bamford & Sergiou, 2005) and many international UG students in an Australian university considered that not plagiarizing was primarily to avoid penalties (Sutherland-Smith, 2008). While most Australian UG students described plagiarism as “dishonest”, most international UG students considered plagiarists as inexperienced and just a few of them viewed plagiarism as dishonest (Stappenbelt, 2012). These consistent findings of different perceptions held by domestic and international students affirm the value of research that takes account of students’ backgrounds, which would also be beneficial to develop understanding of PG students’ experience.
International UG students viewed various types of plagiarism less severely than locals. Marshall and Garry (2006) found that NESB undergraduate students regarded most forms of plagiarism less seriously than their English-speaking background peers. Stappenbelt (2012) reported that most Australian first-year engineering students were aware of the seriousness of plagiarism and considered it an unacceptable practice whereas their international counterparts viewed plagiarism as a less severe offense. In a study of 2500 UG and PG students from multiple UK and Australian universities, Sutton et al. (2014) found that students previously educated in China and Southeast Asia viewed poorly referencing less seriously than those educated in Europe or Australia. Ehrich et al. (2016) revealed that more Chinese than Australian UG students accepted excuses for plagiarism and Australian students viewed plagiarism more severely than Chinese students.
Although differences are apparent between perceptions of plagiarism held by international and domestic UG students, we argue that it is inappropriate to make assumptions that findings for UG students are simply transferable to the experiences of PG students. PG students have different experiences and perspectives, including knowledge of plagiarism and academic integrity (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005; Sutton et al., 2014), and different career trajectories (Artess & Hooley, 2017). The danger of treating UG and PG students as homogenous is supported by studies which highlight that student perceptions of plagiarism change during their learning process, indicating a relationship between academic exposure and improvements in understanding of plagiarism and academic integrity. For instance, definitions of plagiarism of international students with longer engagement in Australian educational environments were closer to those of domestic students (Song-Turner, 2008). Similarly, experienced students were more conscious of textual identities than those with less writing experiences (Abasi et al., 2006) and students in the later years of their degree showed better understanding of plagiarism than those transitioning to tertiary study (Hu & Lei, 2015; Stappenbelt, 2012). Therefore, level of study is a factor that affects student perceptions and understanding of plagiarism, highlighting the relevance of further scholarship to address the knowledge gap related to PG students.
Factors associated with students’ perceptions of plagiarism
Educational background is a major influence on student perceptions. A large and growing body of literature has challenged deficit models of education regarding plagiarism by international students and identified alternative explanations, but this field too has neglected PG students thus far.
Much of the literature reported that UG students’ ability to identify plagiarism varied across educational contexts (Green et al., 2006; Marshall & Garry, 2006; Stappenbelt, 2012). Domestic and international students may have received dissimilar prior plagiarism education which may lead to different perceptions (Leonard et al., 2015; Stappenbelt, 2012). Assessment methods focusing on textbook content discouraged UG students’ critical thinking and expression of ideas (Hayes & Introna, 2005) and exam-oriented and written assessments contributed to their plagiarism (Bennett, 2005; Song-Turner, 2008). Limited exposure to coursework might influence students’ views of academic integrity and their use of source materials (Hayes & Introna, 2005; Nguyen & Buckingham, 2019). These studies suggest the role of learning design as a factor affecting student perceptions.
Explicit plagiarism training makes a difference. A training session on referencing improved Chinese students’ knowledge of referencing and plagiarism (Du, 2020) and a 13-week course on plagiarism-related issues enhanced international students’ academic writing skills and understanding of plagiarism (Tran, 2012). Perkins and Roe (2020) revealed the effectiveness of an academic English master class on Vietnamese students’ understanding of academic conventions.
Raising student awareness of the university plagiarism policies can enhance their understanding of the issue. Students who received information about plagiarism and its avoidance perceived plagiarism more seriously and were less likely to plagiarize than those who did not (Brown & Howell, 2001). Male students, either UG or PG, were more likely to read policies (Gullifer & Tyson, 2014), and possessed slightly more tolerant (Bokosmaty et al., 2019) and positive attitudes toward plagiarism (Jereb et al., 2018) than their female counterparts. Hu and Lei (2015), however, reported no significant difference between male and female students.
Research suggests that policies need to reflect disciplinary diversity within the university, with regard to plagiarism. Students from different disciplines have been shown to hold different views on plagiarism. Business students, both UG and PG, considered plagiarism less seriously than those from other disciplines (Sutton et al., 2014). UG students majoring in English language and business studies were more likely than those in mechanical engineering and computer engineering to view slack attitudes as causes of plagiarism (Hu & Lei, 2015).
These studies point to the complexity of plagiarism and suggest that more work is needed to gain more holistic understanding of the issue. Findings from these studies call for a shift from stereotyping international UG students regarding plagiarism to realizing and acknowledging their diversities to better accommodate their needs, and we assert that this principle is equally valid for international PG students.
Postgraduate students’ perceptions of plagiarism
Studies showed contradictory findings regarding PG students’ understanding and perspectives of plagiarism; we note that investigations have mainly been conducted in non-Western contexts. Most Iranian graduate students considered plagiarism more as unintentional behaviour than a deliberate attempt to cheat (Babaii & Nejadghanbar, 2017; Rezanejad & Rezaei, 2013). Du (2020) found that most Chinese PG students possessed limited understanding of plagiarism before engaging in a training session about referencing and plagiarism. Limited understanding of plagiarism was held by PG students in Japan (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005) and Pakistan (Ramzan et al., 2012). Selemani et al. (2018), in contrast, reported that all PG students in a Malawian university considered plagiarism as a serious academic breach. There is much scope in the field for further knowledge development of PG students’ understandings and perspectives of plagiarism beyond these settings.
Few studies have explored PG students’ perceptions of plagiarism in international education contexts and these revealed inconsistent findings regarding understanding of plagiarism for both domestic and international students. Most Nigerian PG students were found to possess limited prior knowledge of plagiarism and came to realize the seriousness of plagiarism when commencing their PG programmes in a UK university (Orim et al., 2013). Leonard et al. (2015), in contrast, found that most PG students previously educated either outside or within the USA viewed plagiarism as a serious issue. Gullifer and Tyson (2014) reported good understanding of plagiarism among most domestic PG students in Australia and Green et al. (2006) found that they were better than international students in identifying plagiarism. In one study which investigated the impact of an intervention on PG student plagiarism, plagiarism by international master’s students at an Australian university greatly reduced after the intervention, implying that in this case too, explicit training was useful (Duff et al., 2006).
In three studies that we found, similarities and differences regarding perceptions of UG and PG students were observed. Ryan et al. (2009) revealed that few UG and PG students in Australia knew what their university’s policy of plagiarism covered although most were aware of the policy. They also reported inadequate understanding of plagiarism among most students at both UG and PG levels. In other studies, PG students viewed poor referencing more seriously (Sutton et al., 2014) and perceived proper citation as more crucial than did UG students (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005). These contradictory findings suggest that factors related to level of study need further exploration.
In summary, our review of literature found that the range of research settings and participants investigated thus far leave room for further knowledge development. While a number of studies focused on PG students’ perceptions of plagiarism, most were conducted in non-Western contexts. Research that specifically targets the PG student population in international education settings is still scant (Green et al., 2006; Leonard et al., 2015; Orim et al., 2013). Also, most studies simply compared perceptions between domestic and international students without exploring other factors associated with their perceptions. There remains little data regarding international PG students’ perceptions of plagiarism, how their perceptions differ from locals, and what leads to any differences.
Our review of the literature fueled our curiosity to learn how these findings and recommendations related to both domestic and international PG students in the New Zealand context. We had a specific interest in Vietnamese-educated PG students, because Author 1 is a Vietnamese academic who, like many of her peers, has gained a government scholarship for her PhD study in New Zealand, as part of the nation’s strategy to strengthen Vietnamese higher education institutions. This work was framed by a conception of the plagiarism space that recognizes that the diverse experiences of university education and life in different countries and cultures must have a significant impact on individual student’s knowledge and capabilities in using scholarly information. This diversity, we posit, must be apparent in a heterogenous conception of plagiarism in student populations that transcends the simple domestic/international framing of much of the plagiarism literature presented above.