A tale of plagiarism: How serious is the offence to our students

Despite increasing rates of plagiarism in North American universities, little research has been conducted Canadian university students' attitudes toward plagiarism. To address this, we surveyed 377 undergraduate students at a Canadian univeristy using a psychometrically validated instrument to understand their stories about plagiarism (the Attitudes Toward Plagiarism Questrionnaire - Revised; Howard, Ehrich, & Walton, 2014). Although only a concerning minority of student reported engaging in plagiarist behaviours, there was a more pervasive tendency for students to take a permissive stance on plagiarism. These findings will allow educators and educational institutions to better understand students' self-reported stressors and attitudes of plagiarism and enact and create new stories to proactively address these issues.