Purpose
– This paper seeks to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship
students' ethical views on plagiarism, their self reported engagement
in plagiarism and their participation in an online plagiarism prevention
tutorial.
Design/methodology/approach – The study is
based on a questionnaire administered to 434 undergraduate university
entrepreneurship students, combining self-reported data with behavioural
measures.
Findings – The results illustrate that more
than one online plagiarism prevention tutorial is required to change
self-reported views relating to engagement in plagiarism, perception of
peer participation in plagiarism and students' ethical views. However,
it should be noted that even such a small intervention demonstrates an
observable difference in students' capacity to recognise a case of
verbatim plagiarism as an academic breach in practice.
Research limitations/implications
– The research demonstrates that educators should focus on good
educational design, educating students regarding plagiarism prevention
while making use of technology enhanced learning, instead of considering
e-learning choices as a quick solution to plagiarism.
Originality/value
– The paper focuses on an emerging aspect of plagiarism education, that
is, the use of technology enhanced learning. While acknowledging the
potential of technology enhanced learning in plagiarism prevention the
paper notes that plagiarism prevention should be embedded in the
curriculum rather than addressed in an ad-hoc manner.