A Study of Pre-service Teachers' Perception of Plagiarism

The purpose of the current study was to investigate pre-service teachers' perception of plagiarism and plagiarism prevention education with the inclusions of variables such as major and gender. Participants of the study were 118 pre-service teachers majoring in English education and Ethics education at a university located in Korea's Gyeongsang Province. A questionnaire, developed and used for data collection, was composed of five parts: demographic data and a definition of plagiarism, the current status of assignments, reasons for plagiarism, degree of plagiarism, and lectures related to plagiarism or citation methods. A paired t-test, an independent t-test, frequency, and ANOVA were used to analyze the possible differences based on variables of gender and major.The study revealed that almost all students were aware that plagiarism is problematic. However, despite their increased awareness of plagiarism, they also reported that they had rarely taken or heard about lectures on how to cite or research ethics. In addition, the reasons why pre-service teachers engage in plagiarism are affected by variables such as the amount and difficulty of the assignments and the type of assignments they were given. It was also found that female students and students majoring in Ethics education were more strictly aware of plagiarism even though most of the items did not show statistically significant differences according to gender or major. The findings from the present study suggest that plagiarism prevention education targeting pre-service teachers should include proper citation methods and prevention education appropriate for each task type, including self-plagiarism.