The study of academic plagiarism among university students is at an embryonic stage in Spain and in the other Spanish-speaking countries. This article reports the results of a research, carried out in a medium-sized Spanish university, based on a double method approach—quantitative and qualitative—concerning the factors associated with academic plagiarism from the students’ perspective. The main explanatory factors of the phenomenon, according to the results obtained, are: a) aspects and behaviour of students (bad time management, personal shortcomings when preparing assignments, (...) the elevated number of assignments to be handed in, etc.); b) the opportunities conferred by information and communication technologies to locate, copy and paste information; and, finally, c) aspects related to professors-lecturers and/or the characteristics of the subject-course (lecturers who show no interest in their work, eminently theoretical subjects and assignments, etc.). (shrink)

The focus of this article is university teachers’ and students’ views of plagiarism, plagiarism detection, and the use of plagiarism detection software as learning support. The data were collected from teachers and students who participated in a pilot project to test plagiarism detection software at a major university in Finland. The data were analysed through factor analysis, T-tests and inductive content analysis. Three distinct reasons for plagiarism were identified: intentional, unintentional and contextual. The teachers did not utilise plagiarism detection to (...) support student learning to any great extent. We discuss the pedagogical implications and suggest that the contextual reasons for plagiarism require focus primarily on study strategies, whereas the intentional reasons require profound discussion about attitudes and conceptions of good learning and university-level study habits. (shrink)