Architecture Students ’ Attitudes Toward Plagiarism

The present study aimed to reveal architecture students’ attitudes to plagiarism. Quantitative approach with a cross-sectional design research was adopted for the present study. Faculty of architecture, Department of Architecture students (n=233) participated the study. Students answered to Attitude toward Plagiarism (ATP) scale. Data analysis carried out utilizing SPSS. Students’ level of attitudes were found to be moderate for both three dimensions, Positive Attitudes, Negative Attitudes, and Subjective Norms. The students have lack of plagiarism knowledge. Students believe that plagiarism is not good but a community issue. The act to plagiarizing depends on situations. Methodological terms and time limit are leading in causing plagiarism. Plagiarism is primarily an expert issue and students should not be punished for the act, particularly for self-plagiarism. Girls are more sensitive to plagiarism issues than boys. Attitudes to plagiarism changes favorably with grade increase. Implications for librarians, educators, and policymakers are drawn.


Introduction
Scientific research is for improving knowledge of particular phenomenon by revealing information about any missing point, filling the knowledge gaps (Creswell, 2014, p.116).In other words, research depends on up to date knowledge of particular phenomenon.Thus, each study took advantage of literature should cite to those literature.Citing literature used in a study is a principle for scientific ethics.If the source of the information, idea or any approach used are not mentioned, the act of plagiarism, then not only the truth, trustworthiness, and objectivity of the study are suspected but it also harms that field's improvement (Kurbanoğlu, 2004, pp. 1-2).Thus, plagiarism is one of the influential obstacles for the enhancement of correct, trusted, and cumulative scientific knowledge.
A comprehensive definition for plagiarism can be found in Plagiarism.org, as: turning in someone else's work as your own; copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit; failing to put a quotation in quotation marks; giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation; changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit; copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.(What is plagiarism, 2017) The definition is constituted by all unpublished and published materials.Materials include different formats as manuscripts of printed or electronic (Plagiarism, 2018).Moreover, tables, graphs, pictures, images, videos (Çakmak & Baysen, 2017;Çakmak, 2016;Ahmad, Mansourizadeh, & Ai, 2012), and piece of music are also included (What about images, 2017).

Undergraduate Students and the Issue of Plagiarism
Most important aims of education includes gaining scientific thinking and research skills based on ethical values.Thus, academic integrity is one of the fundamental values of education (Schmelkin, Gilbert, & Silva, 2010).Academic fraud is defined as the act and attempt to show someone else's work as their own.Academic fraud includes cheating in the exams, copying other students' homework's, and plagiarism (Jensen, Arnett, Feldman, & Cauffman, 2002).
Students may plagiarize not only intentionally, but they can plagiarize unintentionally.There many reasons to cause unintentional plagiarism: They do not know what plagiarism is, they do not know about the sanctions they are going to encounter if they do plagiarize, and they may have misconceptions regarding plagiarism (Baysen et al., 2017a;Çakmak & Baysen, 2017;Çakmak, 2016;Henderson, 2011).Moreover, they lack academic research, reading and writing skills (Ma & Qin, 2017); lack of knowledge of how to cite depending on different formats such as APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association of America) (Auer & Krupar, 2001).
On the other hand, Valentine (2006) stating plagiarism as a reading and writing process add that plagiarism is a complex issue reflecting the context of citation, students' texts, social and institutional relations, values, emotions, and particularly the attitudes.In this context the following section is going to deal with literature about attitudes to plagiarism, the issue held in the present study.
The studies stated in the previous paragraph used mostly attitude tests to plagiarism.The results of these studies showed the attitudes toward plagiarism in different contexts.For example, Pupovac, Bilic-Zulle and Petrovecki (2008) studied with undergraduate students in four European countries (Spain, United Kingdom-UK, Bulgaria and Croatia) found that the plagiarism rate among the students is high and each student have acted at least plagiarism one time in their university lives.Students from UK, Bulgaria and Croatia were found to have positive attitudes toward self-plagiarism and did not define self-plagiarism as a type of academic fraud.Consistent results were recorded by different research about self-plagiarism (Bašić et al., 2018;Suter & Suter, 2018;Pupovac et al., 2010).Ehrich et al. (2016) working with Chinese and Australian university students found that cultural differences are effective in the attitudes toward plagiarism.In the study while 20% of Chinese students were in favour of plagiarism, the percentage decreased to only 6% for Australian students.The rate increases dramatically in both countries when self-plagiarism is concerned, 90%.
Badea-Voiculescu (2013) who studied with medicine students from Romania used Mavrinac et al. 's ATP and found that students' attitudes to plagiarism is positive.Badea-Voiculescu warned national authorities and academies for this unfavorable result and recommend to guide medicine students and to include academic honesty issues into the academic curriculum.Some other studies also found favorable attitudes to plagiarism (Kirthi et al., 2015;Rathore, Waqas, Zia, Mavrinac, & Farooq, 2015;Pupovac et al., 2010).Additionally, some studies found the relation between self-efficacy and plagiarism (Rocher, 2018) and cheating (Er & Gürgan, 2011).These two studies found contradicting results.Rocher (2018) found that there is a positive relation between selfefficacy and negative attitudes to plagiarism.In other words, increase in self-efficacy correlates with decrease in tendencies to plagiarize.On the other, Er and Gürgan (2011) interestingly found that girls' self-efficacy correlates with positive attitudes toward plagiarism.Hue et al. (2018, pp. 561-562), tried to reveal the factors affecting the university students' attitudes to plagiarism.They found that pressure and internet facilities do not affect attitudes toward plagiarism.They found that the most effective factor is lack of awareness.Institution takes the second place, while personal attitude and lack of competence are weak factors.In the study of Pupovac et al. (2010), they found that "lack of writing skills", "lack of knowledge and awareness of academic integrity" and "scientific community" are effective on attitudes toward plagiarism.
Researchers made recommendations about the problems they encountered in their studies.For example, Hue et al. (2018), stated the need to increase the awareness of plagiarism as a first step.In other studies the awareness was proposed to increase through educational programs including subjects of citation, referencing rules, BİLGİ DÜNYASI, 2018, 19 (2) 231-253 Fatma BAYSEN, Nermin ÇAKMAK, Ayten ÖZSAVAŞ AKÇAY   academic honesty which enhance the skills of understanding and diagnosing the act of plagiarism (Bašić et al., 2018;Hue et al,, 2018;Rathore et al., 2018;Akpınar Dellal et al., 2017;Baysen et al., 2017a;Çakmak & Baysen, 2017;Ma & Qin, 2017;Obeid & Hill, 2017;Özenç Uçak, & Ünal, 2015;Poorolajal et al., 2012;Eminoğlu & Nartgün, 2009).Such courses should also include analyzing, criticizing, writing, and paraphrasing which progress academic skills (Hue et al., 2018).Thus, it is said to improve the attitudes toward plagiarism.In other words, it would decrease the tendencies to plagiarize (Poorolajal et al., 2012).The study carried out by Rathore et al. (2018) adopting focused workshops with medical students is accordance with these results.Rathore et al. (2018), included "scientific misconduct, plagiarism, ethical aspects of medical research and writing" in their workshops.The experimental study showed significant progress in attitudes toward plagiarism and increased awareness.

Plagiarism in Architecture Education
Architecture students are expected to collect examples related to their projects, to do a lot of assignments of case study and space analysis.Such assignments encourage and create a culture of copying and imitation in learning and creating (Opar & Havens, 2013;Öymen Gür, 2007).On the other hand, the students are encouraged to use and be inspired from project examples, particular websites, and important fundamental projects which causes confusion between plagiarism and inspiration (Allmer, 2016;Mostafa, 2011).Moreover, the students are not expected to cite those they are inspired (Opar & Havens 2013).
In the context of architecture, plagiarism can be categorized into two.One is about text-based plagiarism when theoretical subjects in doing homework and while writing articles.The second type is visual plagiarism realized while creating drawings and projects in studios (Opar & Havens, 2013).Carter (2018), stated that visual plagiarism is not a new one and takes the attention to coincidental, imitational or outright plagiarism.Mostafa (2011) and Allmer (2016) also state the difference in between plagiarism and inspiration.Then a question raises: How can we differentiate among these three concepts?Opar and Havens (2013) stated the importance of teaching the architecture students these concepts and the difference among them and put the responsibility to architecture staff and the librarians.Additionally, they put the prominence on collaboration of these two professions in this context.
In architecture, using technologies made the access to projects easier all around the world.Talking about student project contests Allmer (2016) stated that the projects exceeding inspiration levels are increased, but the same technology facilitate finding those extreme inspirations.Following, Allmer stated that prize cancellations did not prevent plagiarism.
There are many courses about "occupational ethics" named differently in architecture curriculums.These courses include Occupational Responsibility and Ethics (İstanbul Arel University 1 ), Subjects of Occupation in Architecture (Eastern Mediterranean University 2 ), Codes and Regulations (İstanbul Bilgi University 3 ), Urbanization and Laws of Town Planning (İstanbul Technical University 4 ), Ethics in Design (İzmir University of Economics 5 ), Architectural Applications and Ethics (Harvard University 6 ), Ethics and Practice and Ethics and Decision Making in Architecture (Carnegie Mellon University 7 ) and Legal Aspects of Planning (Near East University 8 ).These courses include architectures' responsibilities and rules and laws of ethics.In the course of Legal Aspects of Planning in the faculty of Architecture of Near East University plagiarism takes place trying to acknowledge the students about plagiarism (T.Salihoğlu, personal communication, October 15, 2018).
Summarizing when the issue is so sensitive and when plagiarism is a step away from inspiration, the number of research about architecture students' plagiarism issues is low (Allmer, 2016;Ejezi, 2015;Eweda, 2011;Mullin, 2009;Rimmer, 2002).A comprehensive literature showed that there is no study dealing with architecture students' attitudes toward plagiarism.Thus, the present study is an original one in this context.

Aim and Research Questions
The study aimed to reveal architecture students' attitudes toward plagiarism.The study intended to answer number of questions regarding attitudes of Architecture students toward plagiarism, 1.What is the level of attitudes toward plagiarism including three dimensions, a. Positive attitudes b.Negative attitudes, and c.Subjective Norms 2. What is the distribution of attitudes to each scale item depending on the degree of agreement?
3. Is there any significant difference between number of agreements and disagreements to each item?
5. Does grade level create a significant difference regarding attitudes toward plagiarism?

Method
Quantitative research approaches were adopted for the present study.Cross-sectional survey design was followed.Cross-sectional research design is suitable for collecting and analyzing data at one point of time to make inferences about a population (Creswell, 2014, p. 42).

Participants
Near

Data Collection
The Attitude toward Plagiarism (ATP) consisted of twenty-nine items prepared by Mavrinac et al. (2010) was used for the present research.Items 1-12 were related with Positive attitudes to plagiarism, considering plagiarism as an acceptable act.Seven items 13-19 regarded negative attitudes toward plagiarism dimension, disapproval.Lastly, subjective norms dimension was dealt in 10 items from item 20 to item 29, prevalence of plagiarism and acceptance of such behavior in the academic and scientific communities.The scale was formed as a five Likert type.It consisted choices of strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree and, strongly disagree.

Data Analysis
The items were scored depending on agreement level.Score given to strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree and strongly agree were 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively.Thus, the minimum and the maximum scores were 12 and 60 respectively for the Positive attitudes to plagiarism.Negative attitudes toward plagiarism scored as minimum of 7 to maximum of 35.The subjective norms minimum and maximum scores were 10 and 50 respectively.
For data analysis SPSS was used.Number of students, the percentages answering for disagree or agree, and the means were calculated.To reveal if there is any significant difference in the number of the answers Chi Squares were also calculated.The number of students answering as strongly disagree and disagree (Ds) form one group of students, while those answers accumulated as strongly agree and agree (As) formed the other group of answers.

Research Question 1
The mean score for both three dimensions, Positive, Negative, and Subjective Norms were found as "Moderate" (Table 3).This result shows that Architecture students have moderate positive, negative, and subjective norms attitudes toward plagiarism.It can be interpreted that the architecture students are candidate to plagiarism, although they have negative attitudes to plagiarism, they may have positive attitudes in different circumstances.This finding is consistent with those found in the literature (Walcott, 2016;Kirthi et al., 2015;Rathore et al., 2015;Pupovac et al., 2010).

Research Questions 2 & 3
The number of students answering "Neither agree nor disagree" are high.Percentages of this type changes between 28-46, which is significant.The percentages show that students are not sure for their attitudes toward plagiarism.It seems that the issue is still virgin for about quarter to half of the students.
Results of significant differences in the number of students in favor or unfavorable to plagiarism are remarkable (Items 3,4,7,11,17,20,25,26,27,28).Following discussions used not only those items found significantly difference but also the others supporting that particular inference (Table 4).
Students believed that plagiarism is a community issue.People plagiarize, it is a reality (Items 20,22,24,26).This result is consistent with Pupovac et al. (2010, p. 309).Students know that they should cite when they use their colleagues' work.They know that getting permission from colleagues is not enough (Item 10).Although plagiarism is not to steal a tangible asset (Item 15), it is still an important issue, one should not plagiarize (Items 13,17,19,25).The act of plagiarism becomes more sensitive when scientists are concerned (Item 18).Scientists who plagiarize should be punished, they should be unveiled (Item 16).Students think that plagiarism is an act showing decline in moral and ethical issues.Consistently the act of plagiarism can be considered to stop such a decline (Item 14).This finding is consistent with Kirthi et al. (2015Kirthi et al. ( , p.1259Kirthi et al. ( , p. 1261) ) and Pupovac et al. (2010, p.309, p. 311).
Although students are against plagiarism, their attitudes change remarkably when students are considered (Items 2,4,7,9,29).They think that teachers should not automatically define the act of plagiarism as plagiarism, they should go easy, consider the context, and act accordingly (Items 4,7,28).Instructors should know that there are restrictions which make plagiarism inevitable (Item 27).One of those limitations, teachers should consider is that it is not always possible to write an idea without using words not used before.Writers should use common words (Item 1).Methodological terms are leading in causing plagiarism.Students think that they cannot use any other word instead of particular terms (Item 8).Copying few sentences verbatim is not something bad (Item 23) which was also found by Pupovac et al. (2010, p.309) and Walcott (2016, p. 76).Students significantly stated that there is no need to stop selfplagiarism (Item 3).Self-plagiarism may rise from the desire to inspire from previous work (Item 21).The reason not to avoid self-plagiarism can lie in their misbeliefs.They believe that self-plagiarism is a kind of minor offense and they should not be punished for such act.(Item 5).This finding is consistent to many studies (Bašić et al., 2018;Suter & Suter, 2018;Ehrich et al., 2016;Walcott 2016;Kirthi et al., 2015;Howard et al., 2014;Pupovac et al., 2010;Pupovac et al., 2008).

Research Question 4
Considering gender as a variable, there are significant difference between girls and boys mean in only few items.Girls suffer to find different words for methodological terms than boys.Girls consider plagiarism as a worse act than the boys.Girls find it more unbelievable regarding the idea that authors do not plagiarize.Girls disagree that they plagiarize.Girls' degree of disagreement is bigger than those of boys.Summarizing girls are more sensitive to plagiarism issues.Girls find it more difficult not to plagiarize, but they do not intend to plagiarize.They know that people are plagiarizing.Consistent results are revealed in the literature stating that the girls are more sensitive to plagiarism issues and consider plagiarism more than the boys (Akpınar Dellal et al., 2017;Baysen et al., 2017a;Özbek & Çeyiz, 2017;Walcott, 2016).

Research Question 5
Considering grade as a variable, there are significant differences in the attitudes between students attending different grades.First and third graders took the most attention, in the most significant difference case.First and third grades seem to represent the extremes.With few exceptions a general interpretation can be drawn.Attitudes change by grade level.The change is in favor of students and plagiarism.Students passing to higher grades become more aware of the plagiarism and its necessity at least in some conditions.Additionally, they start believing that plagiarism is not so harmful and can be ignored, not punished.Consistent result was revealed by Akpınar Dellal et al. (2017).They found that there are significant differences among different grades of first, third, and the fourth graders.

Implications
The finding that considerable number of students are not sure for their attitudes toward plagiarism opens a challenging, but optimistic situation for the educators.Crude attitudes are more volatile to change in positive direction than those anchored.
Students consider plagiarism as an important issue, representing ethical approaches of a community.Thus, shareholders of plagiarism issue should take the advantage of unfavorable belief to plagiarism to improve ethical understanding.
Students think that plagiarism is a scientist issue and students should not be blamed for plagiarism.Students should be aware of that they are the important part of the science world.On the other hand, teachers should reconsider their expectations from the students particularly about time constrains.
Teachers should encourage students to fight against terminology fear.Students must know that in those cases of mandatory terminology use, the plagiarism rate would not increase as they imagine.Teachers should tell about the mechanism of plagiarism The significant difference in between the grades shows that the students lack plagiarism knowledge in the high schools.Thus, it is important to inform the students before university to ensure its improvement through university years.
Workshops may be beneficiary to create proper attitudes toward plagiarism including learning of citation, writing references, and knowledge of plagiarism.These programs can also be organized as distant learning.Moreover, creating negative attitudes toward plagiarism all shareholders should cooperatively work together, including librarians, educators, and school managers.Such a collaboration was found to work (Rathore et al., 2018;Camara et al., 2017;George et al., 2013).
ATP and similar scales may be used periodically to find the needs of students' to develop new programs.A new scale designed for architecture including materials pictures, images, and projects and asking the right to use them can be inquired.
Finally, it is important to develop a plagiarism guide and protocol for the universities and particularly Near East University Faculty of Architecture.

Table 1 .
East University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture students (n= 233) attended the present study.Students came from different nations found in the Middle East, Turkey, North Cyprus, and Africa.Of these 182 (78%) are boys and 51 (22%) are girls.Students are from different grades, 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd , and 4 th (Table 1).Students ages ranged from 17 to 30 (Table 2).Grade Distribution

Table 2 .
Age Distribution

Table 3 .
Descriptive Results

Table 4 .
Distribution of Responses Toward Items and Significance Results