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

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.