1. Introduction
Stealing others’ work or idea as one’s own without refereeing them is called plagiarism and unfortunately, it has become a concern in the education field. In fact, it is considered as academic dishonesty according to academia alongside educators find many reasons behind this complication. The tendency of committing plagiarism is increasing day by day, especially, among the students of higher education is eye-catching even if they are senior or experienced students. EFL teachers have found many factors that influence students in such dishonesty and punishable action as well as the growth of internet is assumed one of the main roots of plagiarism
| [11] | Elshafei, H. A., & Jahangir, T. M. (2020). Factors affecting plagiarism among students at Jazan University. Bulletin of the National Research Centre, 44(1), 1-5. |
[11]
. Developing country like Bangladesh where getting proper education is a dream for every social level of people and the education system is yet to reach its best, so, most of the students are solely unaware about plagiarism. Even though, English teachers of the tertiary level know about such crimes that students are committing but they could not get the proper chance to give what their perception behind this issue. In fact, the factors that teachers think and their suggestions will be a great help to dispose this massacre in Bangladesh higher education. Romanowski, M. H.
| [36] | Romanowski, M. H. (2021). Preservice teachers’ perception of plagiarism: a case from a college of education. Journal of Academic Ethics, 1-21. |
[36]
explored teachers’ response in this case that the rate of plagiarism is more on the first-year students than the final-year students as they experience many academic aspects
| [40] | Sowell, J. (2018). Beyond the Plagiarism Checker: Helping Nonnative English Speakers (NNESs) Avoid Plagiarism. In English teaching forum (Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 2-15). US Department of State. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs, SA-5, 2200 C Street NW 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20037. |
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. But this trend could not be demolished among the students in between those academic years. Patak, A. A., et al.
| [19] | Patak, A. A., Wirawan, H., Abduh, A., Hidayat, R., Iskandar, I., & Dirawan, G. D. (2021). Teaching English as a foreign language in Indonesia: University lecturers’ views on plagiarism. Journal of Academic Ethics, 19, 571-587. |
[19]
showed some factors of plagiarism from the perspectives of EFL lecturers like, poor academic writing skill, difficult or confused task, being expert in technology make easy way for students to practice plagiarism.
Sorea, D., & Repanovici, A.
| [38] | Sorea, D., & Repanovici, A. (2020). Project-based learning and its contribution to avoid plagiarism of university students. Investigación bibliotecológica, 34(85), 155-178. |
[38]
reported teachers’ statement that saying students’ laziness, poor time management skills and easy access to the internet are the main reasons of plagiarism. Sorea, D., & Repanovici, A.
| [38] | Sorea, D., & Repanovici, A. (2020). Project-based learning and its contribution to avoid plagiarism of university students. Investigación bibliotecológica, 34(85), 155-178. |
[38]
also added that checking the answer scripts takes a lot of time and students can easily change plagiarized text in such a manner that plagiarism is hard to detect. Besides, some teachers hesitate to reveal student’s plagiarism as it is pointless to them and the accusation will fire back at them as suspicions of poor didactic performance in teaching the students. Alongside, most of the teachers think that students are familiar with plagiarism in their previous academic training which creates a huge gap in students’ knowledge of academic writing. Bowen, N. E. J. A., & Nanni, A.
| [5] | Bowen, N. E. J. A., & Nanni, A. (2021). Piracy, playing the system, or poor policies? Perspectives on plagiarism in Thailand. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 51, 100992. |
[5]
examined Text-machine Software (TMSPs) is provided by the universities but teachers do not use it mandatorily to check students’ assigned work. Bowen, N. E. J. A., & Nanni, A.
| [5] | Bowen, N. E. J. A., & Nanni, A. (2021). Piracy, playing the system, or poor policies? Perspectives on plagiarism in Thailand. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 51, 100992. |
[5]
also said that by only focusing on the punishment rather than students’ improvement, surprisingly increased the rate of plagiarism which is mentioned by the teachers. Sadly, well-mannered system of education in foreign countries could not stop this imitating habit of students, so as second language learners, students of Bangladesh have a higher tendency of plagiarizing. Because of the cultural issue who are learning English as a second language, for them, the rate of plagiarism increases as well
| [36] | Romanowski, M. H. (2021). Preservice teachers’ perception of plagiarism: a case from a college of education. Journal of Academic Ethics, 1-21. |
[36]
. So, the claim is very much clear that students of higher education need a proper back up in their academic writing quality to lower the impulse of plagiarism which can only be possible from their prior teachers. Therefore, teachers will become more conscious skilled up students in their tertiary level because students can not solely be blamed for plagiarism. Academy, their policy and teachers’ role are significant to bring up students’ writing quality with plagiarism free and teachers’ perception is very much necessary to bring up all the issues and factors all together to make the aim successful.
1.1. Statement of the Problem
Plagiarism became noticeable in Bangladesh after some recent plagiarized works are revealed in the higher education of EFL students. Teachers of the tertiary level shared some views on this issue through some interviews and also addressed some of the reasons behind this punishable action. According to
| [32] | Olivia-Dumitrina, N., Casanovas, M., & Capdevila, Y. (2019). Academic Writing and the Internet: Cyber-Plagiarism amongst University Students. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 8(2), 112-125. |
[32]
, students think pieces of information on the internet are public property and so they take information to elaborate their academic task although 99.3% of students know ‘copy and paste’ directly from any books or internet sources is recognized as plagiarism, they still do that on their academic paper. Fatima, A., et. al.
| [13] | Fatima, A., Sunguh, K. K., Abbas, A., Mannan, A., & Hosseini, S. (2020). Impact of pressure, self-efficacy, and self-competency on students’ plagiarism in higher education. Accountability in research, 27(1), 32-48. |
[13]
found that students’ personal problems like pressure, self-efficacy, and self-efficiency influence students to be engaged in plagiarism. According to
| [10] | Elkhatat, A. M., Elsaid, K., & Almeer, S. (2021). Some students plagiarism tricks, and tips for effective check. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 17(1), 1-12. |
[10]
, the common reasons for plagiarism are a lack of interest in the assignment, not understanding the context of the assignment and management of time, students’ sense of less-integrity, less awareness and discouragement to write the paper with honesty. But they also found out that students can deceive the TMSPs by stating ‘Disguised Plagiarism’ which means it cannot be their laziness, since it takes lots of efforts and creativity to trick the plagiarism software. They are engaging their potentiality in such illicit behaviors to develop their career which is also alarming. There is no difference in the higher education in Bangladesh. Lasker, S. P., & Macer, D.
| [27] | Lasker, S. P., & Macer, D. (2021). Effect of intervention on knowledge and attitude towards plagiarism among post-graduate students in Bangladesh-a pilot study. |
[27]
showed through their study that students of Bangladesh around the age of 26-33, who are doing their research, they do not have any previous course or training on plagiarism. Unfortunately, there are no systematic rules on plagiarism applied by the institution. Based on the current year, Akter, F.
| [1] | Akter, F. (2021). Impact of Plagiarism in the Higher Education Research of Bangladesh. Journal of ELT and Education, 4(2), 31-36. |
[1]
said that every dissertation of BA or MA degree is not checked appropriately. That is why the result of plagiarism is unknown as not every paper of higher education is checked. Both in public and private universities, only one course is required to teach the ‘research’ which is Research Methodology.
Surprisingly, Mcculloch, S., et al.
| [28] | Mcculloch, S., Indrarathne, B., Jahan, A., Gnawali, L., Hussain, N., Nauman, S., Jayawardena, S. & Abeyawickrama, W. (2020). Investigating English for Academic Purposes provision in South Asian higher education: current trends and future needs. |
[28]
showed in their study, 95.23% EFL instructors of tertiary level of Bangladesh agree with the importance of avoiding plagiarism and it is necessary for the students to learn the methods and most of the students and tutors agree with the importance to avoid plagiarism, source materials and their institutions provide facility to learn the strategies. But during the interview none of the students could describe any learning strategy like evaluating or searching sources that should be included in the provided material. Unfortunately, it was unclear how explicitly the students were taught. On the other hand, it was also clear that the information that both the teachers and students shared were not true. Hence, the consequences can be seen in the wide-circulated newspaper
The Daily Star published a column by
which detailed the condition of research in Dhaka University of Bangladesh. 57 DU law students fined for plagiarism, for stealing Ph.D. thesis, Dhaka University suspends a teacher. Even the journal of Dhaka University “1973 Ordinance” is an explosion of low-quality journals because of committing plagiarism. However, no recent significant study is found to identify based on the tertiary English teachers’ perception on the factors of plagiarism in higher education particularly in the context of Bangladesh.
Therefore, both students and teachers are facing problems to deal with plagiarism and, as a result, teachers have been struggling with how to take control over this massive complication because of the cultural issue, Asian norms, students’ personal complication like laziness, difficulties to understand context and teachers’ limited time to check the scripts, etc. The past study, also shows both students and teachers of higher education provide false information to get ahead from other Asian countries
| [28] | Mcculloch, S., Indrarathne, B., Jahan, A., Gnawali, L., Hussain, N., Nauman, S., Jayawardena, S. & Abeyawickrama, W. (2020). Investigating English for Academic Purposes provision in South Asian higher education: current trends and future needs. |
[28]
. Along with that, no past study is found in the context of Bangladesh based on tertiary level teacher’s perception about plagiarism done by the students. Therefore, an investigation is needed to bring out the perceptions of English teachers of tertiary level on plagiarism which will clearly be showed in this study. The teachers of tertiary level are selected because they are convenient for the sampling frame of the study and easy to access for collecting the data. This study will bring new ideas to evaluate furthermore about the factors that influence plagiarism and will signify the perception of English teachers regarding plagiarism.
1.2. Research Question
What are the perceptions of English teachers about plagiarism at the tertiary level in Bangladesh?
2. Literature Review
2.1. Definition of Plagiarism
Plagiarism has been referred to as a hassle since 1600s whilst writer and satirist Ben Jonson used the word “plagiary” to explain literary theft
| [4] | Ali, W. Z. W. Ismail, H. & Cheat, T. (2012). Plagiarism: To What Extent it is Understood? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 59. 604–611. |
[4]
. Bailey, J.
said that the etymology of the word plagiarism is from the word ‘plagiarius’ which means “kidnapper, seducer, plunderer.” The first time it was used in the context of literature which was sometime around 80 AD by the Roman poet Martial. At that time, poets were told to recite original works by other authors. When Martial learned that another minstrel, Fidentinus, was reciting his own works and taking credit for them, Martial chose to reply. Bailey, J.
also stated that in 1755, Samuel Johnson's dictionary included the term "literary plagiarism" and defined it as: "A thief in literature; one who steals the writings or thoughts of another." Bailey, J.
added that the vigorous interest in plagiarism is often tied to the Age of Enlightenment, in between 1685 and 1815. The Enlightenment represented a radical shift in many areas of thought, including government, philosophy, science, economics, and many more. Bailey, J.
further exclaimed that “the Statute of Anne” was the first modern copyright law and which was the first copyright law to give control to the original author, not to the publishers. In turn, it contributed to a greater focus on individual creativity and authorship. For the next 150 years, plagiarism remained a topic of contention in particular areas like academies and professional environments but would remain a laborious task. It was the digital invention of copy and paste in the mid-70s because in the analog world, copying and finding was a challenge. As the internet exploded, growing from 23,500 websites in 1995 to an estimated 17 million in 2000 and home internet service providers began to take off in the 90s, potential plagiarists suddenly had access to a virtually unlimited amount of content to pull from the amount of information available grew along with it
.
2.2. Forms of Plagiarism
Gottardello, D., et al.
| [14] | Gottardello, D., Pàmies, M., & Valverde, M. (2017). Professors’ perceptions of university students’ plagiarism: A literature review. BID: Textos universitaris de biblioteconomia i documentació, 39(diciembre). |
[14]
said in their study that the EFL faculties accuse the problem of plagiarism withinside the academic strategy. Besides, professors believe that students plagiarize in a calculated way and intentional manner. On the other hand, Puengpipattrakul, W.
| [33] | Puengpipattrakul, W. (2016). Investigating academic plagiarism in a Thai context. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 13(2), 203-228. |
[33]
said due to the time limitation some citation style and quoting can be missed by the students which creates unintentional plagiarism. Park, C.
| [34] | Park, C. (2004). Rebels without a clause: Towards an institutional framework for dealing with plagiarism by students. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 28, 291-306. |
[34]
said in his study, intentional plagiarism, as the name says, occurs due to students‟ willingness to do so while unintentional plagiarism occurs due to students‟ unawareness and inadequate academic ability and knowledge of how to do quoting, paraphrasing, citing and referencing properly. Maurer, H., et al.
| [30] | Maurer, H., Kappe, F., & Zaka, B. (2006). Plagiarism - A survey. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 12, 1050-1084. |
[30]
have divided plagiarism into four types; intentional, un-intentional, accidental and self-stealing. According to
there are 8 common types of plagiarism, which are: Complete Plagiarism (copying someone’s entire work and claiming as one’s own), Source-based Plagiarism (data fabrication, data falsification, misdirecting citation, misleading citation), Paraphrasing Plagiarism (rewriting someone’s work as own and the most common types of plagiarism), Direct Plagiarism (copying a part of someone’s work and claiming as one’s own), Self/Auto Plagiarism (using own previous work without citing), Inaccurate Authorship/ Misleading Attribution (can happen in group work when someone gets credits for other peer’s hard work or the one who does everything doesn’t get any credits), Mosaic Plagiarism/ Patchwork Plagiarism (mixing someone else’s text within own writing), and finally Accidental Plagiarism (happens unintentionally for not recognizing mistakes).
2.3. Research on Teacher’s Perception of Plagiarism
As future gatekeepers of academic integrity, it is essential to gain insight into how teachers understand plagiarism. Sun and
showed in their study, EFL teachers have stronger linguistic competence in English and so teachers have stronger sense of integrity and obligation towards academic behavior. But most often teachers became too frustrated having so many cases of students committing plagiarism and going through the trouble of navigating due to deal with students’ plagiarism. Hu, G. & Shen, Y.
also mentioned another reason is teachers have to be in this profession for a long time and older at age. Therefore, they have less exposure to the Modern English concept when they were in higher education and teacher education program. Again
found in their study teachers had more shaded idea about plagiarism. They have very traditional ideas like textual borrowings. Shahbaz, M.
| [39] | Shahbaz, M. (2019). Students and Teachers’ perceptions about Academic Dishonesty at a University in Pakistan. Towards Consistency and Transparency in Academic Integrity, 89. |
[39]
showed lecturers’ attitudes towards plagiarism that a text with long quotations and few original ideas is considered as plagiarized text although it cites properly (p. 9). According to
| [20] | Hu, G., & Lei, J. (2016). Plagiarism in English academic writing: A comparison of Chinese university teachers' and students' understandings and stances. System, 56, 107-118. |
[20]
, 58.06% home-trained teachers are unacknowledged copying as plagiarism. Khathayut, P., & Walker-Gleaves, C.
| [22] | Khathayut, P., & Walker-Gleaves, C. (2021). Academic faculty conceptualisation and understanding of plagiarism–a Thai university exploratory study. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(4), 558-572. |
[22]
revealed that the lecturers did not understand ghost-writing, sham paraphrasing and using quotation marks with appropriate citation. Even some lecturers had misunderstanding about plagiarism avoidance that a copied sentence must not be changed to the author’s words, but it needs to be cited. Interestingly, most of the lecturers did not know that ghostwriting or asking someone or hiring to write a paper for them and presenting it as their own is plagiarism.
On the contrary, Dwi, I. G. N. A. R., et al.
| [9] | Dwi, I. G. N. A. R., Santosa, M. H., &Paramartha, A. A. G. Y. (2020). A STUDY OF INDONESIAN LECTURERS'PERCEPTION ON STUDENT PLAGIARISM. SAGA: Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 81-94. |
[9]
showed in their study, borrowing task or homework is categorized as plagiarism by the lecturers. Because the original idea came from another person and is not mentioned in the writing paper, so, they think it is cheating and part of plagiarism. Dwi, I. G. N. A. R., et al.
| [9] | Dwi, I. G. N. A. R., Santosa, M. H., &Paramartha, A. A. G. Y. (2020). A STUDY OF INDONESIAN LECTURERS'PERCEPTION ON STUDENT PLAGIARISM. SAGA: Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 81-94. |
[9]
also showed using an old work without citing is auto-plagiarism from the lecturers’ perspective. Hu, G., & Lei, J.
| [20] | Hu, G., & Lei, J. (2016). Plagiarism in English academic writing: A comparison of Chinese university teachers' and students' understandings and stances. System, 56, 107-118. |
[20]
testified on 128 Chinese university teachers where the teachers’ background and teaching experience significantly showed their knowledge on plagiarism. From disciplinary background and overseas experienced instructors showed their stance on plagiarism and ability to produce legitimate paraphrases. Alongside, their responses aligned with Anglo-American conceptions of plagiarism- textual judgments, considered plagiarism not only according to the extent to which the original text was changed, but also in terms of textual ownership and source attribution
| [31] | Marshall, S., & Garry, M. (2006). NESB and ESB Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions of Plagiarism. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 2(1), 26-37. |
| [41] | Shi, L. (2004). Textual Borrowing in Second-language Writing. Written Communication, 21(2), 171-200. |
| [35] | Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing Others’ Words: Text, Owner -ship, Memory, and Plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30(2), 201-230. |
| [42] | Scollon, R. (1995). Plagiarism and Ideology: Identity in Intercultural Discourse. Language in Society, 24(1), 1-28. |
[31, 41, 35, 42]
. Hasanah, U., & Dewantara, A. H.
| [15] | Hasanah, U., & Dewantara, A. H. (2022, April). The Faculty Awareness on Plagiarism Issue. In 1st World Conference on Social and Humanities Research (W-SHARE 2021) (pp. 38-42). Atlantis Press. |
[15]
provided information that lecturers have better understanding about the terms and forms of plagiarism as well as each of them could mention at least one form which they teach their students in detail.
But the lecturers do not give detailed explanation of the parts they have to improve to reduce the duplication. Long, K.
stated about the tutors’ perception that unintentional missing of citations can be plagiarism. Long, K.
also said that there is no citation needed during common knowledge. However, they have no identification of self-plagiarism as academic integrity violation. But the tutors have a little argument among themselves whether reusing ideas, content and completing edits of an old paper is plagiarism or not. Further, Long, K.
mentioned some tutors also referred what the institution feels and identification in policy is plagiarism.
Sowell, J.
| [40] | Sowell, J. (2018). Beyond the Plagiarism Checker: Helping Nonnative English Speakers (NNESs) Avoid Plagiarism. In English teaching forum (Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 2-15). US Department of State. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs, SA-5, 2200 C Street NW 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20037. |
[40]
mentioned some faculty members complain deliberately about student plagiarism but at the same time, some of the instructors themselves are plagiarists, sometimes to a pronounced degree, for instance, copying others’ research or having graduate students write their papers. Additionally, many lecturers mentioned that they can use the student’s works by putting students’ names as co-authors or co-researchers or, they could ask the student whether they would use it for their further study or not if not, they would use the student’s work as their own with a name of another lecturer
| [22] | Khathayut, P., & Walker-Gleaves, C. (2021). Academic faculty conceptualisation and understanding of plagiarism–a Thai university exploratory study. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(4), 558-572. |
[22]
. So, it is the teachers’ responsibility as instructors to be knowledgeable about the complexities of plagiarism and to hold themselves to the highest standards
| [40] | Sowell, J. (2018). Beyond the Plagiarism Checker: Helping Nonnative English Speakers (NNESs) Avoid Plagiarism. In English teaching forum (Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 2-15). US Department of State. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs, SA-5, 2200 C Street NW 4th Floor, Washington, DC 20037. |
[40]
. Khoii, R., & Atefi, M.
| [24] | Khoii, R., & Atefi, M. (2019). Perceptions of plagiarism in academic settings: are university students and professors in the same boat. Literacy Information Comput Educ J, 10(3), 3232-3237. |
[24]
examined on EFL professors who did not have a rooted understanding of all aspects of plagiarism in both EFL Eastern and non-Eastern contexts and ways to avoid it.
The research findings of
| [29] | Marzulina, L. (2019). Uji Similarity (Cutting The Prevalence Of Plagiarism In The Digital Era: Student Teachers’ Perceptions On Plagiarism In Indonesian Higher Education). |
[29]
indicated that teachers as the future agents in education had a lack of knowledge of plagiarism and research misconduct. Amelia, C. B.
| [3] | Amelia, C. B. (2020). EFL teachers' and students' plagiarism management strategies in english writing (Doctoral dissertation, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya). |
[3]
showed in her study lecturers revealed that students’ papers come up with variant types of plagiarism such as paraphrasing plagiarism, patchwork plagiarism, global plagiarism, and citing non-existent source. Yet, the most common types that students committed are paraphrasing plagiarism and patchwork plagiarism. Amelia, C. B.
| [3] | Amelia, C. B. (2020). EFL teachers' and students' plagiarism management strategies in english writing (Doctoral dissertation, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya). |
[3]
also found from lecturers’ statement that students often copy a sentence, two sentences, or the whole content of essay without citation. Lecturers also found the students providing wrong sources in footnote.
| [38] | Sorea, D., & Repanovici, A. (2020). Project-based learning and its contribution to avoid plagiarism of university students. Investigación bibliotecológica, 34(85), 155-178. |
[38]
identified six categories that associated with student plagiarism. Similarly, lecturers associated plagiarism with different negative personality traits: dishonest, too ambitious, and lacking integrity
| [39] | Shahbaz, M. (2019). Students and Teachers’ perceptions about Academic Dishonesty at a University in Pakistan. Towards Consistency and Transparency in Academic Integrity, 89. |
[39]
. Apriliani
| [2] | Apriliani, A. (2021). Plagiarism Practices As Conducted By Higher Education Students In Academic Writing: Lecturers’ Perception. |
[2]
found from two teachers’ interviews that plagiarism practices always appeared in every batch of an academic year. Apriliani, A.
| [2] | Apriliani, A. (2021). Plagiarism Practices As Conducted By Higher Education Students In Academic Writing: Lecturers’ Perception. |
[2]
also found the form of plagiarism that the students did was intolerable because they were ‘intentionally and completely doing crime’ because of the form of complete plagiarism. But both lecturers believed that plagiarism practices as conducted by higher education students cannot be judged directly as academic crime due to many factors that have to be considered. If teachers expect their students to present plagiarism-free work, then they must be exemplar models towards their students.
3. Research Method
The study uses a qualitative method in this study. Data collected from qualitative research facilitate researchers to comprehend the phenomena from the participants’ perspective. Interviews, group discussion, observation, document analysis, and ethnography are often used as qualitative approach
| [21] | Hair Jr, J. F., Sarstedt, M., Matthews, L. M., & Ringle, C. M. (2016). Identifying and treating unobserved heterogeneity with FIMIX-PLS: part I–method. European Business Review. |
[21]
.
3.1. Sample and Sampling Technique
From the list of elements, the sampling frame is designed. The sampling frame for this study is taken from the teachers of the English department in higher education from Bangladeshi public and private universities. Higher Education includes teachers teaching at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels at different universities in Bangladesh. The reason for selecting university teachers as target participants due to their experience in teaching English department, guiding students in learning the English language, for analysis students’ written papers, witnessing students’ plagiarized papers, factors that challenge teachers to solve this problem, teachers’ perception and guide influence students, etc. Almost all the teachers in higher education in Bangladesh have at least once dealt with plagiarized works from their students. All in all, teachers of tertiary level are convenient for the sampling frame and easy to access for collecting the data of this study. So, the expected data can be collected from them. The sampling frame was constructed by 10 participants based on the criteria e.g., teachers who are residents of Bangladesh and teaching in higher education at public and private universities in Dhaka city. The required number of data was collected following purposive sampling technique.
3.2. Data Collection and Processing
For data collection, an in-depth interview is chosen as the instrument to help the researchers to analyze the perspective of a small amount participants on specific phenomena. The respondents were university teachers who generally teach both English literature and language and so all of them are experts at teaching English skills. Their permission has been taken through social media, phone calls, and on face-to-face meetings prior to their interviews. The interview questionnaire was sent to them via e-mail and all the participants were encouraged to share their perspectives liberally. In total 10 teachers were interviewed for the data collection. The interviews were verified for validity and compatibility by encountering their perspectives thoroughly and were analyzed for the research objective.
3.3. Developing In-depth Interview Protocol
Based on an in-depth literature review a semi-structured interview guide was developed
| [25] | Kvale, S. (1996). The 1,000-page question. Qualitative inquiry, 2(3), 275-284. |
| [43] | Thambusamy, R. X., & Singh, P. (2021). Online Assessment: How Effectively Do They Measure Student Learning at the Tertiary Level? The European Journal of Social & Behavioural Sciences. |
[25, 43]
. The researchers focused on teachers’ perceptions of plagiarism. The researchers go through validity and reliability assessments before conducting the data collection process. By using a combination of argumentative and cumulative techniques, qualitative experts at Southeast University validated the interview guide. Argumentative validity uses data as a source of argument to overcome a conflicting point of view
| [7] | Bittmann, S., & Thomas, O. (2013, June). An argumentative approach of conceptual modelling and model validation through theory building. In International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems (pp. 242-257). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. |
[7]
. Cumulative validation is the cross-referencing method in which researchers use accessible literature to match findings. Based on the nature of the data and availability of resources, the present study followed the cumulative verification process considering the nature of the data. In the cumulative validation process, cross-referencing is used meaning that the researchers used accessible literature to match the results.
To ensure the reliability of the research, e-mails sent by the interviewees after completing the interview questionnaire, audio records, and video records were preserved. There were in total of 22 interview questions and teachers may need a maximum of 60 minutes to answer those interview questions. The in-depth interview questionnaire is attached in Appendix.
3.4. Data Analysis
Thematic analyzing in-depth interviews are important for research. The significance of the thematic analysis is to examine data from interview or transcript and later identify the common themes
| [8] | Caulfield, J. (2019). How to do thematic analysis. Retrieved on July, 7, 2020. |
[8]
. Basically, this is an analytic process that narrows down the data into a few themes. Various approaches are conducted for thematical analysis. The following process are adapted for thematic analysis.
At first, the whole text or transcription was read thoroughly, afterwards, some of the important relevant ideas were noted down. Secondly, a particular in-depth written form was chosen and evolving ideas from that particular transcription then the common or related issues from the whole transcription were underlined or asserted within parentheses to be coded under the selected code or theme. The paragraphs or sentences were bracketed or underlined under the same theme throughout the whole text. As a result, all the important and related themes are coded from the whole transcription. Besides, a list of all codes was arranged to complete the coding process of an entire text and similar codes were put into a single category or a group. On the other hand, all the unnecessary and additional codes were separated. Similarly, the whole text was examined based on the list of codes, in particular, the important quotes from participants were put into inverted commas or circled which may support any listed codes. Then the codes were narrowed down to limited themes or categories and presented in the result section. In this manner, the collected data through in-depth interviews with 10 teachers are presented in Chapter Four of the study.
4. Findings and Discussion
In the interview, they shared their knowledge, perception, and experience regarding plagiarism. They explained the difficulties and challenges they face regarding plagiarism in academia in a developing country like Bangladesh where the education system is also developing. Howsoever, TI stands for Teacher Interview in the study. In this manner, TI1 stands for Teacher Interview 1, TI2 stands for Teacher Interview 2, TI3 stands for Teacher Interview 3, TI4 for Teacher Interview 4, TI5 for Teacher Interview 5, TI6 for Teacher Interview 6, TI7 for Teacher Interview 7, TI8 for Teacher Interview 8, TI9 for Teacher Interview 9 and TI10for Teacher Interview 10.
A demographic profile of the participants of the interview is given below:
Table 1. Participants’ Demographic Information.
Name | Gender | Age | Designation | Institution Name | Years of Experience | Type of University Graduated from |
TI1 | Female | 31 | Lecturer | BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology | 6 years+ | Public |
TI2 | Female | 45 | Senior Lecturer | Independent University | 15 years+ | Public |
TI3 | Male | 32 | Assistant Professor | Dhaka International University | 7 years+ | Public |
TI4 | Male | 60+ | Adjunct Professor | BRAC University | 33 -years+ | Public |
TI5 | Male | 35 | Lecturer | Independent University | 9 years | Private |
TI6 | Male | 48 | Associate Professor | Independent University | 18 years+ | Public |
TI7 | Male | 50+ | Professor | Jahangirnagar University | 20 years+ | Public |
TI8 | Male | 35 | Lecturer | Southeast University | 6 years | Private |
TI9 | Female | 32 | Lecturer | Southeast University | 5 years+ | Public |
TI10 | Male | 30 | Lecturer | Uttara University | 5 years | Private |
4.1. Teachers’ Perceptions Regarding Plagiarism
All the participants have a very clear idea about plagiarism and about its forms. They all stated, “It’s not only academic, any kind of work or ideas claiming our own without permission or giving credit to the authentic author is plagiarism”. They experienced many types of plagiarism, for instance, intentional, unintentional, accidental, self-plagiarism, complete plagiarism, etc. (TI1, TI2, TI4 & TI10). When the participants check the answer scripts through online software checkers, they mostly find out copy-paste in the answer scripts or recognize the plagiarized work based on the particular students’ language proficiency but checking every time is very time-consuming. TI2 exemplified that sometimes students use ‘rewrite software’ for complete plagiarism, in that case, plagiarism cannot be identified through online checkers, so, she said, “I take each sentence and search that on google and google shows all the sources of those sentences which take lots of effort and time.” In another incident, TI2 shared “I could not identify through plagiarism checkers and the student did not admit. So, I called her and asked the meaning of a particular word that she used in her assignment. But she could not tell the meaning and admitted that she plagiarized.” To avoid plagiarism TI2 mentioned that she takes ‘viva’ in some courses instead of giving any written task. Except for TI4, all the interviewees consider plagiarism a crime. “It is an unethical practice and every crime starts from little at the end becomes unbearable, so, plagiarism is a preview of corruption” (TI2 & TI6) while TI4 considers this as an “offense”.
Although the participants care about their ‘students’ moral ground’ (TI3 & TI4), ‘motivate them about being honest and sincere towards their job' (TI1 & TI5), and make them aware that they will get punishment, for example: ‘rewriting the whole assignment’ (TI2, TI4 & TI9) or ‘marks will be deducted or get F grade’ (TI1, TI3 & TI8). Besides, TI2 and TI5 also added they give tasks of creative ideas and critical thinking and create a feedback session on students’ writing. However, teachers showed a negative impression of the existing academic policy though "the institutions say that they have zero tolerance" (TI6), and “There is no strict rule to check students’ answer scripts” (TI3). In reality, the university culture is not aware of this issue and its consequences and does not provide any software to the teachers (TI2). The cultural system of academia is also responsible for this because from grade 1 to 12, students go through another system which is 'memorization', and then all of a sudden, they are told to write creatively but they don't even know how to refer literary words because of very poor intellectual foundation (TI4, TI6). Besides, in public universities, handwritten scripts cannot be identified whether plagiarized or not (TI6). The problem is much more acquired in public universities than the private university (TI5, TI6). Because some private universities at least provide plagiarism-checking software or at least have teachers who are trained in this particular issue (TI6). Even many teachers are doing the same thing as they are not getting any notable punishment and academic culture takes it in a flexible way making them do it more (TI3 & TI10).
One particular thing mentioned by TI6 is that the institutions do not include plagiarism-policy in their course outline; “If it is not mentioned in the course outline, how will students learn about it?” In this case, TI4 emphasized, ‘English skills and learners’ responsibility’ is important. But students do not read scholarly words or are not good readers. “If you’re a good reader, you’ll be a good writer” (TI4) thus it will help students to be creative, to enrich their knowledge, and they can bring many references from different sources. “Students can make their hypothesis in the form of reality when they have their own linguistic development which surely accelerates reduce of plagiarism in their writing” (TI3 & TI9). TI5 says writing is a cognitive process and the last stage of achieving a language. So, students may be good at writing but not paraphrasing because it is a ‘sophisticated’ skill.
There is no particular skill writing course for students to develop such sophisticated skills. But TI2 has the opposite opinion, “I’ve seen students who have good language proficiency but did plagiarism whereas some students with low skills try to write by themselves and ultimately they improved.” TI3 added that students must need to have strong morality which will boost them with trust, honesty, and sincerity about their tasks. Similarly, teachers are role models for their students. So, they try to be conscious of their writings, articles, research paper, and the materials they provide in the class for students. Four of the participants said they do not provide any class materials, rather they teach students from books or explain the concept by themselves. Furthermore, other participants added citations and references to avoid plagiarism in the materials or they show the sources from the direct link. In case, any citation is missed, they write it on the board for the recognition of the author.
The perceptions sum up the fact that though teachers have a very clear idea about plagiarism. But they accused the existing academic culture of ‘memorization’ which is the first vital problem for a student at the tertiary level to write plagiarism-free. Another fact has been found that institutions take plagiarism very lightly. Especially, it is practiced mostly in public universities than in private universities. Institutions do not establish any writing courses for students as writing is a very sophisticated skill and does not provide any strict rules or no application of the existing rules.
Also, plagiarism is not included in the course outline for students to know about it properly. One more important fact has been traced students need to be strong on their moral grounds. It is not always possible for the teachers to check every single answer script or check line by line, especially on the final submission. Besides, students put their effort into online rewrite software to minimize the amount of plagiarism or to complete plagiarism, as a result, any plagiarism software cannot detect the plagiarized work. So, language proficiency and capacity help to improve their writing but students’ moral achievement is also important. Their sense of integrity, sincerity, and responsibility will barricade them to do such crimes considered by the participants. However, most of the participants said they take the necessary initiatives to improve their students’ writing by providing creative assignments and feedback sessions on writing. But they didn’t mention any writing strategies that they taught their students. Furthermore, it is not always possible for them to check the answer scripts but they try their best not to overlook the matter. They do not give any strict punishment to the students, mostly return the assignment to write it again or deduct the marks.
Similarly, the findings match with the result of
| [33] | Puengpipattrakul, W. (2016). Investigating academic plagiarism in a Thai context. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 13(2), 203-228. |
[33]
where the author also mentioned cultural problems and memorization as the barrier to plagiarism-free writing in the Thai context. Hafsa, N.
| [16] | Hafsa, N. (2021). Plagiarism: A Global Phenomenon. J. Educ. Pract, 12(3), 53-59. |
[16]
also mentioned academics must have a clear-cut policy regarding plagiarism. However,
| [17] | Hu, G. & Shen, Y. (2021, Jun 22). Chinese university teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding plagiarism: knowledge, stance, and intertextual competence. Ethics & Behavior, 31(6), 433-450. From, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/10508422.2020.1776616?scroll=top&needAccess=true\ |
| [24] | Khoii, R., & Atefi, M. (2019). Perceptions of plagiarism in academic settings: are university students and professors in the same boat. Literacy Information Comput Educ J, 10(3), 3232-3237. |
[17, 24]
showed teachers have a very blunt idea about plagiarism which oppose the findings and have a very traditional idea like textual borrowing. News reports
| [18] | Hawlader, A. (2020, January 22). 98pc plagiarism found in DU teacher’s PhD dissertation. Prothom Alo English, Retrieved from, https://en.prothomalo.com/amp/story/bangladesh/news/208332/98pc-plagiarism-found-in-DU-teacher%E2%80%99s-PhD?fbclid=IwAR1rdL054I9I7vn6yAXD0K0b7e6pEZso8xQtXVE7_UiqiLCc6mWLbncka5I |
| [23] | Karim, M. A. (2019, Apr 11). Dhaka University: Challenges for the future. The Daily Star, Retrieved from, https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/education/news/dhaka-university-challenges-the-future-1727953 |
| [37] | Ray, N. (2021, Jan 31). Behind varsity's thesis paper plagiarism. The Financial Express. Retrieved on Jun 18th, 2022, from https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/print/behind-varsitys-thesis-paper-plagiarism-1612112768 |
[18, 23, 37]
show that students and teachers from public universities are accused of plagiarizing in their research papers which is also found from the interviews as well. Elkhatat, A. M., et al.
| [10] | Elkhatat, A. M., Elsaid, K., & Almeer, S. (2021). Some students plagiarism tricks, and tips for effective check. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 17(1), 1-12. |
[10]
also support the findings that students use different techniques to deceive different plagiarism detection. In the same way, Amelia, C. B.
| [3] | Amelia, C. B. (2020). EFL teachers' and students' plagiarism management strategies in english writing (Doctoral dissertation, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya). |
[3]
found out students tend to plagiarize having low ability in reading and writing as well as a lack of morality which matches one of the most important findings of the study. On the other hand, Bowen, N. E. J. A., & Nanni, A.
| [5] | Bowen, N. E. J. A., & Nanni, A. (2021). Piracy, playing the system, or poor policies? Perspectives on plagiarism in Thailand. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 51, 100992. |
[5]
oppose the punishment policy and focus on the improvement of the students.
The facts that are found in this study are important in the education field to improve or rectify its policy and necessary steps as these facts will help the teachers and policymakers in order to decide what measures should be taken for the teachers and students to increase knowledge regarding plagiarism, to arrange proper training for students and to motivate them to be responsible and honest towards their tasks.
The findings show that teachers need to attend training to upgrade their knowledge. Besides, their perceptions of plagiarism show that they know about it but there is little implication to solving this problem. As a consequence, students suffer both in their academic and professional careers for plagiarism. However, the findings failed to explain the writing strategies to avoid plagiarism. Besides, the factors are specifically mentioned in the survey questionnaire. Different factors can be identified if there will be an open-ended question from their personal opinion. In addition, the survey was only conducted inside Dhaka city among private and public universities. Furthermore, the study is conducted only based on the perception of teachers in higher education while the students may have different perceptions regarding plagiarism which is not established through this study.
4.2. Recommendations for Future Works
Based on this study, it can be recommended institutions and teachers that they can play an active role in reducing plagiarism. Teachers should take proper training to have proper knowledge about plagiarism and then can teach the students about the writing strategies to avoid plagiarism. Besides, they can be able to know about different authentic software to check plagiarism. This research is significant for higher education students, teachers of the tertiary level, institutions, academy policymakers, and researchers from the perspectives of the tertiary level in Bangladesh. In the future, other researchers can do further research on this topic on a broader scale and also include all the national universities as well. In the future, a further study can be conducted on this point by other researchers.
4.3. Conclusion
The results of this study confirm what other researchers have reported in similar studies but in different contexts. The professors’ less-than-perfect perceptions of plagiarism might have stemmed from a lack of training, contextual disincentives, and a general departure from taking the issue seriously in an environment where their peers show little effort to do the same. Undoubtedly, this is a serious situation, which demands an appropriate and prompt remedy. It is clear within this study that not only is this a widespread problem but also that plagiarism conceptualization is a multifaceted issue and so depends on not only one method of reducing it. The current status of literature supports this and demonstrates the critical need to clarify both generalities around the different types of plagiarism and how each is understood by academics, as well as suggesting ways forward to understand how plagiarism amongst academics is constantly a cultural issue.
Besides, new and developed academics learn from being academics when plagiarism is an issue but does not appear as it is. Policies with a precise definition of plagiarism and its types including penalties for those who plagiarize should be centralized at this and other universities, and the university should take plagiarism seriously not only to create an environment of academic integrity. Alternatively, requiring students to take a course on the issue can help them avoid plagiaristic mistakes further down the line. Finally, the researchers believe that the increasing adoption of plagiarism checking software in academic settings could prevent the occurrence of plagiarism to a large extent. Undoubtedly, the students should be familiarized with the nature and functions of such software before they are put into use in related contexts. All in all, it seems that the adoption of an educative approach to plagiarism would be more constructive than a punitive one in academic contexts. Although this particular study cannot be completely generalized due to relatively small samples, it may encourage both Bangladeshi universities and other higher education institutions alike to pay more attention to deal with plagiarism and to understand the impact of not doing so on both academic integrity and future academics’ career development.
Appendix
In-Depth Interview Protocol
Demographic Profile of the Participants:
Gender:
Age:
Type of University:
Experience of Teaching:
What are the perceptions of English teachers about plagiarism at the tertiary level in Bangladesh?
a. What is plagiarism from your perception?
b. How did you first learn about plagiarism?
c. Do you think plagiarism is a crime? If yes, then explain why?
d. What is your perception of the existing academic culture at the university level regarding plagiarism?
e. What types of plagiarism are mostly found in students' writing? (Intentional, unintentional, accidental....) and what are they? (Copy-paste, paraphrasing....)
f. How do you discuss about “academic integrity” in class?
g. How do you make your class materials plagiarism free for your students? (E.g., providing citations and references, summarizing, quoting, paraphrasing, etc.)
h. What are your pedagogical practices for addressing student plagiarism?
i. How do you detect your students' plagiarized works?
j. How do good English skills help reduce plagiarism?
k. Is it one’s sense of integrity or one’s knowledge or English skills in increasing or decreasing plagiarism? Please provide your ideas from a teacher’s perspective.
l. As a teacher, how do you make sure that your work is plagiarism-free?
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