Abstract:

This paper is based on a Study carried out under the Research project "The academic plagiarism among students of Secondary Education" funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation with reference EDU2009-14019-C02-01/02-02 and developed by the University of the Balearic Islands and the University of Cádiz. The research group based at the University of the Balearic Islands, “Education and Citizenship”, has consideration of Competitive Group and is sponsored by the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands, through the Directorate General for Research, Innovation and Technology Development of the Department of Innovation, Interior and justice and has FEDER co-financing funds.
Main aim: The present study aims to analyze, from the perspective of teachers, issues relating to the commission of plagiarism in the preparation and presentation of academic essays by students of Secondary Education in the Balearic Islands.
Design / methodology / approach: The study is based on the administration of a questionnaire to a sample of 356 secondary school teachers of the Balearic Islands. The field work was conducted during the months of January, February and March 2012.
The results of the survey show a marked tendency of teachers to believe that students do not manage their time as it should when asked to elaborate an academic essay. Nearly three-quarters of the surveyed teachers believe that students always leave work for the last day (50.7% say they are "somewhat agree" and 20.5% "strongly agree"), about the same proportion does not believe that their students when they have to prepare an essay, they start it immediately (35.9% expressed being "strongly disagree" and 39.9% "fairly indisagree" with the statement).
In reference to other skills, such as searching for information through Internet, Google appears to be the first tool in use (42.1% and 28.8% of teachers say they, "pretty" or "strongly" agree, with that statement) In addition, teachers believe that students are not competent to evaluate the information located trough general search engines: 78% of the participants believes "when they find information on the Internet that allows them to write an essay, they keep whatever they find first and they do not look for more".
Results obtained by the study suggests, amongst others, the need to promote information literacy skills amongst secondary education students, specially when we refer to the elaboration of academic activities.

Keywords:

Academic plagiarism, Ciberplagiarism, Academic fraud, Secondary Education, Academic dishonetity, Academic integrity.