University students before the commission of plagiarism by their peer group

Abstract

This research focuses on analyzing the perception of university students with respect to their peers about the commission of plagiarism through different practices established at the theoretical level, as well as checking the possible existence of differences depending on the academic year and branch of knowledge. In order to answer the questions posed, an exploratory research was designed by using a questionnaire addressed to the population under study, the university students of the Autonomous Community of Galicia. The non-probabilistic sample was made up of a total of 8.526 students. From the results of the investigation, it is possible to emphasize the high valuation of the commission of plagiarism by the peer group; the lowest values occur in the first year and grow as the courses progress, until they lower again in the fourth and fifth year. Regarding the branches of knowledge, in general terms, the students of the Arts and Humanities branch present lower values than the rest. As a discussion and conclusions of this work, we try to provide answers to this situation through the analysis of previous studies on this topic.