Management Strategies for Curbing the Prevalence of Plagiarism in Project Writing amongst Students of Imo State University Oweeri

Abstract

Many undergraduate students copy a lot from other people's research project reports and many graduate students lack the capacity to carry out and report the research work required of them for graduation. This research ascertained the views of Science and Arts Education students on the causes of the problem, types, and the strategies the university adopts to solve the problem since it has been noted by scholars that science students are prone to plagiarism. This is done through a case study of A clustered proportionate random sample size of 200 drawn from the 500 Science and Arts based final year students of the Faculty was used for the study. Four and three research questions and hypotheses respectively were formulated. A 36 item researcher made four point rating scale of Strongly Agree (SA) Agree (A) Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) was the instrument for data collection. Frequency tables, Mean scores with 2.50 decision point and t-test are the statistical tools used for the analysis of the data. The study revealed inadequate time, improper teaching of Research method, ignorance, absence of a university policy etc. as the causes of student project plagiarism, submission of project written by someone else, revising previously written project etc. are the commonly engaged types of plagiarism by students. It also found that University uses the teaching of research method, rules and regulations etc. to curb plagiarism while rejection of plagiarized project, publication of culprits names, workshops etc. are the preventive measures. Based on these, recommendations were made that plagiarism test should be run for finished projects, project workshop be mounted for students, proper and adequate teaching of Research method and project Supervision should be done by the lecturers.