engleski

Law Students’ Perceptions of Academic Integrity: Pilot-Study

Purpose The goal of the study is to investigate law students’ perceptions about the academic integrity and plagiarism. Academic dishonesty within the context of higher education has been a focus of various research studies (Ashworth et al., 1997 ; Power, 2009 ; Spearman, 2014), which indicates its importance for academic community. There is a growing concern among academia that with the advance of information technologies such sort of behavior would be impossible to prevent. However, although the new technology and the Internet make academic dishonesty easier, they also make plagiarism more visible, mainly through the existing plagiarism detection software (Vasilleva & Chankova, 2019). Design/Methodology/Approach The pilot study of law students’ perceptions about academic integrity will take place in March and April 2021 (summer term). The sample will consist of students of one seminar course per each study year (five years in total) at two law schools in Croatia (in Osijek and in Rijeka). Research instrument will be the online questionnaire and students will be asked to give their opinions about various situations related to academic integrity in the context of their field of study. Research questions that guide our pilot study are: What are the perceptions of Croatian law students toward plagiarism and academic honesty? What are the challenges of electronic environment in relation to students’ academic integrity? Do students possess enough knowledge about plagiarism to successfully avoid it? Do students want to see topics from the area of academic honesty and plagiarism included in library IL workshops? Originality/Value Although of seemingly high interest to academia, this topic is underinvestigated in Croatian academic community. A few studies that were conducted in Croatia (Petrak & Bartolac, 2014) dealt with high school and students of health studies. Therefore, this will be the first investigation of Croatian law students’ perceptions toward academic integrity. This study will open the path to further research and increases the awareness about the importance of academic integrity topics. Furthermore, this study will offer guidelines for the involvement of these topics in law librarians’ IL workshops.

academic integrity, law students, Croatia

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