Plagiarism awareness, perception, and attitudes among students and teachers in Swedish higher education – a case study

The objective of the empirical study presented in this paper was to investigate students’ and teachers attitudes towards the issue of plagiarism. The study was conducted at the department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University (SU) in Sweden in 2009. For the purpose of the investigation, we chose to make a comparison between results obtained by Uppsala University in a previously survey focused on the study of prevention of plagiarism in student work in 2005 (Henriksson, 2008). The goal with the comparison was twofold: i) to point at similarities and differences found on the issue of how plagiarism is perceived and faced by teachers and students at both universities as well as to summarize teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards plagiarism at DSV-Stockholm University and Ii) to develop a strategy to prevent plagiarism at DSV- Stockholm University. The survey which was in English and was sent by e-mail to teachers and students at the master level at DSV and was answered by 47 students and 24 teachers. Results obtained can be organized into the following topics: Awareness of plagiarism (consisting of a comparison between students and teachers); attitudes towards plagiarism(consisting of a comparison between students and teachers and European and non-European students studying at DSV); perception of plagiarism (consisting of a comparison between students and teachers and European and non-European students studying at DSV) and, comparison of results obtained by Uppsala and Stockholm University.
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