Having the aim to reduce and eliminate personal plagiarism in Universities and Colleges, as well as make efficient use of prevention tools, it is of utmost importance to have a detailed view of plagiarism reasons and tendencies. This will enable the educators to have a perfect understanding in which areas mutual efforts are needed and in which way changes for the better can be expected.
According to numerous studies carried in different countries, the reasons for plagiarism draw attention to the students’ behavior and habits while writing the work or characteristics of the study process in one or other institutions of higher education. Personal plagiarism is usually based not on a few motives but has a large scale of reasons, which most often intertwine with the level of authority.
Sorting the reasons of personal plagiarism according to their importance can hardly be generally accepted worldwide, but it specifies the exact area, which should become subject to plagiarism prevention measures. In numerous countries carried studies indicate the following reasons of students’ written works plagiarism at Universities and Colleges:
- the lack of academical and information literacy;
- unskillful time management and the lack of time;
- unawareness of plagiarism as academic misconduct;
- personal values and behavior.
Analysis of the causes of plagiarism, as indicated by scientists in various countries, has a few patterns, why some students are more likely to deal with plagiarism than others:
- men plagiarize more often than women;
- young and immature plagiarize more often than older and mature;
- bad students plagiarize more often than good ones;
- more often plagiarize students, who are socially active and have a few activities;
- distrustful students, searching for good opinion, as well as aggressive, unadaptable to the social environment, tend to plagiarize more often;
- students plagiarize more often if consider the subject to be boring, useless or lecturer seems to be too liberal;
- students, who are not afraid to be caught and punished, are likely to plagiarize more often.
That is why lecturers at Universities and Colleges must always remember they are dealing with generation, which grew up surrounded by modern technologies and constantly is more or less influenced by changing the understanding of the copyright in society.