Iraqi EFL college students' awareness of plagiarism

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to discover whether Iraqi EFL College Students are aware of research plagiarism or they are not. To manage this study the researchers set three questions, aims, and hypotheses. Thus they prepare a questionnaire (of five domains and 25 items) to be conducted on 116 male and female fourth year students from department of English/ College of Education/ University of Kerbala. The results show that they are unaware of plagiarism because they are not acquainted with the right way of avoiding plagiarism. A t-test has been use to show whether there are differences between males and females, and the result shows no statistical difference. Moreover, a set of conclusions such as students are not acquainted with the right way of documentation because the textbook is relatively old, they don't have enough practical training in writing research paper. Finally, recommendations have been presented such as: The instructors (whether professors or teachers) should focus on the ethical considerations in writing papers, the textbook should be updated occasionally to match the need of the new academic publishing requirements.