Academic faculty conceptualisation and understanding of plagiarism – a Thai university exploratory study

Abstract

Plagiarism incidents within higher education have increased significantly in the last decade, and have persistently occupied academics and administrators in institutions worldwide. Research demonstrates that in many national contexts such behaviours are increasing or are significantly threatening the integrity of scholarship. In the country that is the subject of this research, Thailand, the nature and extent of plagiarism have been neither sufficiently researched nor understood. This study aimed to explore Thai academics’ (n = 44) conceptualisation and awareness of plagiarism. Data sources included questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that the lecturers had both limited understanding and low awareness of plagiarism and that their conceptualisation of plagiarism both as a problem of scholarship and of moral behaviour was unsophisticated at best and a matter of ambivalence at worst. The findings also revealed an institutional level of tolerance and ambiguity about the problem. As such, this research has implications for institutional and individual academic behaviour.