Investigating attitudes toward plagiarism among post-graduate ELT students

Abstract

The students’ awareness level and attitudes toward plagiarism, which is using others’ words, thoughts and work without giving reference to the original author, are a matter of study at the higher education level and have implications in English Language Teaching (ELT). However, upon researching the literature, it has turned out that there has been a limited number of studies on attitudes toward plagiarism among post-graduate ELT students. To this end, this study aimed to investigate their attitudes toward plagiarism in a descriptive survey design extending to the existing literature. Data were collected by utilizing a questionnaire. The study’s participants were post-graduate ELT students from universities in Türkiye (N = 30). According to the results, they seemed to oppose supporting or justifying plagiarism. The results also revealed that the participants approached plagiarism quite negatively. They considered it an unacceptable issue to be taken seriously. However, their attitudes toward self-plagiarism tend to be moderate rather than negative. The current investigation uncovered that the participants did not fully understand plagiarism. Based on the findings, there was a need to raise post-graduate ELT students’ awareness levels Furthermore, necessary recommendations were made to broaden the post-graduate ELT students' knowledge and awareness levels about plagiarism.