Students' Post Plagiarism Experience and Resilience for Quality Research Activities in Nigerian Universities

Students' Post Plagiarism Experience and Resilience for Quality Research Activities in Nigerian Universities

Eseyin, Emmanuel Olorunleke

The study was carried out to investigate students’ post plagiarism experience and resilience for quality research activities in Nigerian Universities. There were four research questions and four corresponding null hypotheses that were answered and tested in the study. The design employed for the study was descriptive survey since the study deal with the collection of data to explain an existing phenomenon in order to make generalization. The population of the study comprised 242,000 postgraduate students in Nigerian universities (Statista, 2022). However, purposive and random sampling technique was used to select four universities (two North & South; two Private and Public) and these were Al-Hikmah University, Kwara State and University of Abuja, FCT in the North and Universities of Port Harcourt, Rivers State and Lead City University, Ibadan in the South. These four universities have a student population of 6, 918 while the Taro Yamane minimum sample size determination technique was used to determine the sample size of the study which was estimated as 378 and this was divided by the population strength of the universities as follows (University of Abuja 218, Al-Hikmah University 6, University of Port Harcourt 102 and Lead City 52). The 378 students drawn as sample for the study were selected across the different disciplines, sex, university type and location. The instrument presented to the selected respondents for data collection was a questionnaire titled “Students Post Plagiarism Experience and Reliance for Quality Research Activities Questionnaire” (SPPERQRAQ). The questionnaire had two sections namely Section A which was used to collect data from the students on their sex, type of university, location and discipline. The Section B of the questionnaire contained 20 questionnaire items responded to on a modified Likert rating scale of Strongly Agreed (SA), Agreed (A), Disagreed (D) and Strongly Disagreed (SD) with weighted values of 4, 3, 2 and 1. These weights were summed together (4+3+2+1) =10/4 to arrive at 2.50 which was the criterion mean score used to agree or disagree with a questionnaire item.

2022