Use of digital sources and plagiarism in academic papers during the pandemic

Abstract

The use of digital sources is becoming more frequent in any activity of daily life, also in education. This study aims to verify what type of information source university students use when carrying out their academic work during the confinement derived from COVID-19 and to analyze whether, depending on the type of source used (digital, paper, digital and paper), they are produced differences in the plagiarism behaviors, in the causes and in the perception of the actions carried out by teachers to prevent students from committing plagiarism. A quantitative, descriptive methodology was used. We worked with a sample of 2,020 undergraduate and master's students from the three public universities of Galicia. The information collection technique was a questionnaire, applied online. The results show that the students mostly used digital information sources to carry out their academic work during confinement, and that the plagiarism actions carried out are not determined by the type of information source used. In conclusion, the findings of the study can help to understand how and why university students resort to plagiarism when doing their academic work, and to develop interventions that reduce this dishonest academic practice.