Cheating among university students is more common than ever before, according to a survey for the Higher Education Academy.
Out of the UK’s 168 universities and colleges, researchers found that over 9,000 incidents of plagiarism took place last year – the equivalent to 7.2 cases for every 1,000 students.
It was also found that figures for postgraduate students were higher at 11.9 cases of plagiarism for every 1,000 students.
Researchers claimed this was surprising because “the traditional view is that inexperienced pupils entering higher education are the most likely to commit plagiarism due to a lack of skills in academic literacy and citation techniques’’.
The news comes one year after gair rhydd reported that Cardiff students were being threatened with disciplinary action for comments made on a social networking website.
Their discussion of coursework via popular website Facebook was seen as an act of plagiarism by the University.
But further studies into students who cheat at university have shown that students caught submitting plagiarised work are rarely expelled.
One survey discovered that out of 9,200 cases of students cheating only 143 resulted in expulsion.
Almost all universities involved, however, had threatened this punishment.
Now researchers have called for more consistent penalties to be put in place in UK higher education institutions, which commonly respond to plagiarism by telling students to re-submit their work.
A study of 86 UK universities from the Higher Education Academy and Joint Information Systems Committee also reported “widespread concerns” about students using the internet to copy work or buy essays.
