Cheating during examinations is triggered by peer influence. It makes every learner know and do what should not be done. Cheating during examinations defeats the purpose of understanding, applying and creating ideas as stipulated in the revised Bloom's taxonomy by Anderson. The study reported here was designed to delve into the reasons and aspirations of the respondents in their cheating engagement. Sixteen (16) key informants, selected using random sampling procedure among Junior and Senior High School learners of Roxas National Comprehensive (...) High School in Palawan during the months of June to October 2016, completed open-ended questionnaires and took part in the interview. NVivo software was used in the analysis of the themes that emerged from the data. This study discovered that friendship is manipulated, for it makes doing right things unacceptable and things to be avoided like cheating seem right and acceptable. The behavior about cheating during examination is deeply rooted in the culture of pakikisama (social acceptance/liking) and utang ng loob (debt of gratitude). If a learner does not share his or her answers, he or she will be labeled as walang pakisama (no concern).This paper then argues that honesty should not be just a policy; rather, honesty in this case, is the only policy. Condemning academic dishonesty must not merely rest in the enrollment forms, but by constant moral reminder and intervention of teachers who have a responsibility to hone learners' decorum on honesty and maturity. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated the ability of Iranian students of applied linguistics to discern plagiarism in writing, their perceptions of its ethical aspects, their characterizations of plagiarists, and their perspectives on why they may commit plagiarism. In so doing, a slightly revised version of Deckert’s 1993 questionnaire, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, was electronically distributed among 156 graduate students of applied linguistics. The results of the quantitative data analysis revealed some understanding of the concept but an inconsistent performance (...) in recognizing plagiarism. Regarding issues of ethics and fairness, they were concerned with their own needs along with the original writer’s rights more than with rights of their classmates, colleagues, or teachers. They regarded unfamiliarity with the concept and nature of plagiarism as the main reason for committing it. The analysis of the qualitative data yielded the following reasons for students’ plagiarism: students’ unfamiliarity with plagiarism, students’ low academic writing skills, teachers’ carelessness and leniency, students’ lack of time, students’ laziness and deceitfulness, educational system and its policies, students’ low language proficiency, students’ unfamiliarity with the subject of writing, and teachers’ high expectations. In conclusion, some suggestions are offered as to how to decrease the rate of plagiarism. (shrink)

This paper investigates differences in the prevalence of self-reported examination cheating behaviours and perception of peer cheating between enrolled students and graduates. A convenience sample of 344 respondents selected from a Ghanaian polytechnic completed self-administered questionnaires. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test of independence and Mann Whitney test. “Permitting another student to copy your answers during an exam” was the topmost exam cheating method among students. Graduates were more likely than enrolled students to self-report higher examination cheating behaviours. (...) Enrolled students were less likely than graduates to perceive higher levels of peer cheating. Future studies should consider using graduates in students’ cheating studies in order to validate the results of the study. This study extends the extant literature on academic dishonesty as it provides insight on self-reported cheating between students and graduates. (shrink)

The present study was an attempt to shed light on the status of plagiarism in the Iranian academic context. It tried to survey the EFL learners’ perceptions of and reasons for different types of plagiarism. To this end, 132 EFL learners from different Iranian universities took part in the study. The data were collected through using a questionnaire specifically designed to gather information on plagiarism. The results indicated that plagiarism is quite common in the Iranian EFL context as different types (...) of plagiarism are employed by the students. Many students were found not to have a negative attitude toward plagiarism. The results also indicated that gender, marital status and occupational status did not have a significant effect on plagiarism, whereas academic level, field of study, and age played a significant role in this regard. (shrink)

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. (shrink)