How prevalent is plagiarism among college students? Anonymity preserving evidence from Austrian undergraduates

Speil, Alexander; Hopp, Christian (2020). How prevalent is plagiarism among college students? Anonymity preserving evidence from Austrian undergraduates Accountability in Research, 27(7), pp. 1-16. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/08989621.2020.1804880

Text How prevalent is plagiarism among college students Anonymity preserving evidence from Austrian undergraduates.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (640kB) | Request a copy

Plagiarism in academia is endangering the veracity of any discipline. Yet, estimating the actual prevalence of plagiarism is difficult due to the sensitive nature of freely admitting actual offenses. Respondents to questions on plagiarism oftentimes conceal potential misconduct and thus refrain from truthfully responding to such a sensitive question. In this work, we therefore employ item-count techniques to provide a better estimate of the prevalence in academia using a student sample. Our results drawing on 428 students from an Austrian university reveal a high prevalence of plagiarism (around 22 percentage points). We also assess the robustness of the findings using placebo measurements. Our results suggest a much higher prevalence of plagiarism then comparison studies when respondents can be convincingly assured of their anonymity.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	Business School > Business Foundations and Methods
Name:	Speil, Alexander and Hopp, Christian0000-0002-4095-092X
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Language:	English
Submitter:	Christian Hopp
Date Deposited:	16 Sep 2020 14:41
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2021 02:18
Publisher DOI:	10.1080/08989621.2020.1804880
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Scientific misconduct, plagiarism, ethics, experimental methods
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.12311
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/12311