Simon Jessop.

Student Number: 06383422

A Critical analysis of Guo, X. (2011) Understanding student plagiarism: an empirical study in Accounting Education.
Summary
The journal article written by Guo seeks to investigate the behaviours that factor into student plagiarism in accounting education and provide recommendations to help lower the occurrence of student plagiarism within accounting education by identifying the factors that influence plagiaristic behaviours and forming recommendations to help positively influence those behaviours. (Guo, 2011) Guo firstly attempts to identify the factors that concern student plagiarism, specifically those factors most prevalent in accounting education, through literature review. Through empirical testing Guo seeks to form a model of those identified factors through use of a questionnaire issued to 381 UK accounting students. The information received through the questionnaires was then processed using structural equation modelling (SEM) in order to assist with data analysis. (Guo 2011) Through his research Guo identifies four primary factors that influence the behaviours that impact upon plagiarism notably (i) academic integration (ii) cultural influences (iii) moral capability and (iv) gender. Guo also redresses factors previously established factors that were speculated upon during the literature review particularly the influence of new technology on the behaviours that influence plagiarism . (Guo 2011) Guo posits that, following his literature review, previous investigations into the subject of plagiarism in accounting education have failed to include postgraduate students in their research and has sought to redress this by including both post and undergraduate students in his study. (Guo 2011) Guo concludes this paper by using the results of his research to form a coherent model of the factors influencing the perpetration of plagiarism in accounting students and finalises his study with a series of recommendations to help reduce the incidence of student plagiarism in accounting education. (Guo 2011)

Simon Jessop. Student Number: 06383422

Critique
The article begins by introducing the issues surrounding concerns raised regarding student plagiarism in UK higher education since the turn of the century . Guo Identifies a concern expressed by a number of commentators (Samuels and Bast 2006; Selwyn, 2008) that a rise in available online content may have predicated a rise in student plagiarism (Guo, 2011) Guo comments that given the nature of accountancy and the number of high profile financial scandals in recent years (ICAS, 2007a; 2007b; IFAC,2007) there should be a due diligence in accountancy education to ensure ethical conduct amongst new practitioners of accountancy emerging into the professional market from the ranks of current accountancy students. As plagiarism is identified as a key proponent of unethical academic conduct (Ameen et al, 1996; Duff, 1998; Smith, Davy, Rosenberg and Haight, 2002) and there is an identified need to encourage positive ethical conduct amongst accounting students. Guo has conducted his research into order to provide recommendations to aid higher education establishments in lowering the frequency of student plagiarism. (Guo, 2011) Guo indentifies that previous studies have focussed on samples taken from undergraduate students and seeks to redress this by including postgraduate students in his research sample, however does not verify in his listed respondents what proportion of the 381 usable responses, taken from two UK universities, are from postgraduate students, nor does Guo verify from which universities the samples are taken (Guo, 2011). Hu and Lei when conducting a study into cultural factors influencing plagiarism in Chinese students specifically outline the social and economic difference between the two universities their sample is taken from giving a more rounded sample of data (Hu & Lei, 2012) however both studies' samples contain a higher proportion of female students which raises questions over how representative either of the studies can be. prior to the analysis of sampled data Guo formulates nine hypotheses, based on the findings of the literature review, then uses those hypotheses to create a proposed model of factors affecting student plagiarism shown in Figure 1 (Guo, 2011)

Simon Jessop. Student Number: 06383422

Subsequent to statistical analysis of the sample received by questionnaire, Guo uses structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the model hypothesized model in figure 1 and then adapt the model to include related paths of behaviours found via correlations formed from analysis of the received data.(shown in Figure 2)(Guo 2011)

(Figure 2) Having formulated this model based on his research findings, Guo goes on to provide a number of recommendations based on his findings. (Guo 2011) One of Guo's recommendations to reduce the incidence of student plagiarism stems from his research indicating that lack of awareness of plagiarism increases the chances of it occurring. Guo states 'educating students in what constitutes plagiarism and raising students awareness of its legal implications should be critical' (Guo 2011) This is in keeping with current academic literature from commentators such as Uemlianin (2000), Barry (2006) and Landau, Druen, and Arcuri (2002). Many commentators (MacDonald 2006; Ellery 2008; Colnerud and Rosander 2009; Pittam et al. 2009; ODwyer, Risquez, and Ledwith 2010) advocate introducing the education of the proper use of quotation, referencing and paraphrasing as early into a student's academic career as possible (Risquez, ODwyer, & Ledwith, 2013) in keeping with Guo's recommendation for appropriate education on plagiarism. Guo's recommendations also concur with current proposals on tackling student moral capability (Ramzan, Munir, Siddique, & Asif, 2011) as to in the inclusion of ethics based modules in undergraduate courses, however there is little support shown for Guo's recommendation for the implementation of systems to aid in students becoming better integrated into their academic lives. Other research(Matalene, 1985; Pennycook, 1996; Scollon, 1994; Hu and Lei, 2012) has confirmed Guo's hypothesis on the role of cultural influences on plagiaristic behaviours.

Simon Jessop. Student Number: 06383422 Guo's research does open the door to a number of questions, notably that while all plagiarism is considered academic misconduct, are there varying levels of severity? Also if many of the various factors influencing plagiaristic behaviours can be mitigated by proper education into what constitutes an act of plagiarism, what recourse is recommended for students who habitually and purposely engage in plagiarism despite education provided to reduce the instance of plagiarism? as noted by Ramzan et al' students very fairly admitted that they have intentionally plagiarized and they also know that their fellow students are involved in plagiarism' (Ramzan, Munir, Siddique and Asif, 2011)

Bibliography
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Simon Jessop. Student Number: 06383422 Landau, J.D., P.B. Druen, and J.A. Arcuri. (2002). Methods for helping students avoid plagiarism. Teaching of Psychology 29, no. 2: 1125 MacDonald, J.C. (2006). Plagiarism a complex issue requiring a holistic institutional approach. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 31, no. 2: 23345. Matalene, C. (1985). Contrastive rhetoric: An American writing teacher in China. College English, 47, 789808 ODwyer, M., A. Risquez, and A. Ledwith. (2010). Entrepreneurship education and plagiarism: me lies, tell me sweet little lies. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 17: 64151 Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 201230. Pittam, G., J. Elander, J. Lusher, P. Fox, and N. Payne. (2009). Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing. Studies in Higher Education 34, no. 2: 15370. Ramzan, M., Munir, M. A., Siddique, N., & Asif, M. (2011). Awareness about plagiarism university students in Pakistan. Higher Education, 64, 7384 Risquez, A., ODwyer, M., & Ledwith, A. (2013). Thou shalt not plagiarise: from self- reported views to recognition and avoidance of plagiarism. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38, 3443 Samuels, L. B. and Bast, C. M. (2006). Strategies to help legal studies students avoid plagiarism, Journal of Legal Studies Education, 23(2), pp. 151167 Scollon, R. (1994). As a matter of fact: The changing ideology of authorship and responsibility in discourse. World Englishes, 13, 3346 Selwyn, N. (2008) Not necessarily a bad thing .. .: A study of online plagiarism amongst undergraduate students, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, iFirst Article, 33(5), pp. 117 Uemlianin, I.A. (2000). Engaging text: Assessing paraphrase and understanding. Studies in Higher Educ1ation 25, no. 3: 34758 amongst Tell