Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
5-16-2021
Abstract
It is a common knowledge that undergraduates in the discipline of science and social science consult a wide variety of information materials to carry out researches, assignments, prepare for examinations and accomplish their terminal projects. As such, they are prone to unethical use, which may constitute plagiarism; hence this study investigated knowledge, perception and attitude of science and social science undergraduates to plagiarism in University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 3,459 undergraduates during 2016/2017 academic session. A two stage sampling technique was adopted. A stratified sampling was first employed to group students to levels of study from 100 to 400 Level. Simple random sampling technique was applied to select 10% of the population, making a total sample size of 348. Data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) was used for data analysis. The following findings were made: undergraduates are aware of what constitute the act of plagiarism, however, they believe it is difficult to avoid it completely; the knowledge of plagiarism does not stop the indulgence in it; factors promoting plagiarism include: short deadlines, lack of referencing knowledge, lack of penalty for involvement in plagiarism, among others. It was therefore, recommended that higher institutions in Nigeria should include topics on plagiarism, referencing and copyright issues in their curricula. All tertiary institutions should develop and implement an in-house policy on plagiarism and copyright infringement, among others.