EFL College Teachers' and Students' Perceptions of the Nature and Causes of Plagiarism

Plagiarism has recently turned into a major concern for academics and academic institutions. The problem seems to have become so widespread that several types of anti-plagiarism software have been developed to check the originality of scholarly papers and students' assignments. Unfortunately, it appears that this unethical strategy is steadily increasing across college and university students in higher education settings and within other groups such as scholarly and scientific communities, political offices, and journalistic groups. Nevertheless, the reasons continue to be obscure. In reality, available statistical findings do not provide a very clear picture of the scale and nature of plagiarism itself and the problems associated with it. Neither do they clarify the extent to which this phenomenon is changing through time or is different from country to country, from subject to subject, or among undergraduate and graduate students. It is assumed that if students are made aware of the consequences of plagiarism, they will exercise some caution in resorting to it while writing an important paper which is going to be published. Despite the great attention paid to this issue in academic journals and settings, plagiarism still occurs at large, and many students, scholars, and even politicians are still accused of committing it. Some may claim ignorance, and some could be breaking the rule to meet deadlines. Accordingly, the present study was carried out to investigate EFL college teachers' and students' perceptions of the nature and causes of plagiarism. The participants consisted of 20 EFL university professors and 40 university students studying TEFL at MA and PhD levels. They received a Likert-Scale 30-item questionnaire enquiring about the nature of plagiarism in the view of the respondents and their attitude in this regard. The results demonstrated that both groups were equally aware of the nature of plagiarism and the related ethical issues, while the students had considerably different standpoints regarding the excuses and punishments for plagiarism.