White Paper January 2025
Why Students Turn to Plagiarism
The five reasons behind deliberate plagiarism, and the two kinds of student they describe.
This is relevant to you because:
- You want to understand deliberate plagiarism separately from cases where students genuinely misread the rules.
- You're designing interventions and need to know which student motivations they ought to target first.
- You suspect stricter penalties alone will not change behaviour without stronger detection alongside them.
- You want to reach students heading towards academic difficulty before a deadline forces their hand.
Abstract
This paper examines why students plagiarise deliberately, drawing on a 2020 meta-analysis by Hattingh, Buitendag and Lall that synthesised 37 studies and ranked eleven distinct motivations by frequency.
Five reasons stand out once unintentional misconduct is set aside: poor time management, temptation and opportunity, academic difficulty, lack of deterrence, and efficiency gain. These cluster into two groups. Reactive plagiarisers are pushed into it by pressure and difficulty, and respond to support with time management and early intervention. Proactive plagiarisers weigh risk against reward deliberately and are unmoved by teaching. Deterring them requires raising the likelihood of detection, not only the severity of the sanction.