Canadian university students’ gendered attitudes toward plagiarism

Abstract

Prior research on plagiarism has indicated that men may have a greater predisposition toward academic dishonesty than women. However, little research has been conducted using psychometrically tested instruments to validate such claims. To address this gap, a survey was conducted with 377 undergraduate students at a Canadian university on their attitudes toward plagiarism using a psychometrically validated instrument (the Attitudes Toward Plagiarism Questionnaire – Revised). Using differential item functioning/Rasch analysis, no overall differences in attitudes toward plagiarism based on gender were found. A descriptive analysis of both men and women revealed that while only a concerning minority of students reported engaging in plagiarist behaviours; there was a tendency for students to take a permissive stance on plagiarism. These results are discussed within the wider context of plagiarism research in higher education.

Keywords:

• Canada
• plagiarism
• academic dishonesty
• attitudes
• university
• education

Notes

1. For the purposes of this paper, men/male and women/female are considered correlated. Because gender roles are socially constructed and continually in flux (West and Zimmerman 1987, 2009), the use of the gendered dichotomy of men/male and women/female is limiting, reductive, and reifying but is a limitation inherent in the data. While this paper’s approach does not fully acknowledge the scope of sexual and gendered differences, the goal is not to further reify a false dichotomy or essentialist thinking.