Use of Bibliography and Academic Plagiarism among University Students

Abstract

Given the proliferation of student plagiarism from the Internet, the intention of this study is to understand academic plagiarism among university students and how they cite and reference the information they find on the Internet. The study was carried out at Mondragon University (Basque Country, Spain). Quantitative data was collected using two questionnaires, and qualitative data was collected through five different focus groups. The participants were students and their lecturers. The findings suggest that students do not understand the importance of citing and referencing the information they use in their academic research. While students believe that they do not plagiarise, lecturers consider that plagiarism is a real problem.