## 3 Results and Discussion
### Why Do Students Plagiarize?
#### 3.2.1 A Lack of Awareness and a Poor Understanding of Plagiarism  
The most basic and fundamental cause seems to be the students' lack of awareness and understanding of plagiarism. Three Nvivo-generated themes were placed into this category: a lack of awareness, a poor understanding, and a lack of knowledge about citations.  
The first theme was a lack of awareness, as 44 students wrote that they had a lack of awareness of plagiarism and the policies about it. Despite being university students, they said that they had not even heard about it. Their awareness about plagiarism, plagiarism policies, and the consequences of plagiarism was very limited. As one student wrote,  
_\"...(In Pakistan) most students are unaware about plagiarism and its consequences. No one tells them about it. We do not find it anywhere. Some students [do not even] know the meaning of plagiarism. So most students are doing plagiarism without even knowing that they are doing plagiarism.\"_  
This situation is not surprising, as the literature also points this out [29; 30]. Surprisingly, these are online university students who are more Internet savvy. The university has also provided information about plagiarism on both its website and the LMS (learning management system), but it seems that no proactive measures were taken to create an awareness of it.  
The second theme in this category was a poor understanding of the concept. Twenty-two students said that the students did not have a proper understanding of the concept. This can also be connected with their responses to the first question, where the majority of students said that plagiarism was \"copy\", \"copying\", or \"copy-paste\" only. This confirms [42] (p. 643) the notion that students are \"still apparently confused\" about the concept of plagiarism.  
The third theme was focused on students' knowledge about practices to avoid plagiarism, especially citation conventions. More than half of the students (149 out of 267) reported that they were never taught about plagiarism or citation conventions at any level. They stated that their lack of knowledge often led them to plagiarize content, even when they tried to avoid it. As one student wrote,  
Figure 1: Determinants of plagiarism.  
\"... in citations and references... finding [the] right content and right method for citation[s] is [the] biggest problem. Many students do not know how to cite, how many words should be in inverted commas, [or] how to give reference[s]. Most of the time we think we [have] cited correctly, but in reality we [have] not, and we [have committed] plagiarism.\"_  
Another student explained how the lack of proper guidance about citations could play a role, saying,  
_\"We [were] never taught about references and citations. There was no course in college, [or] even in university, [and] we do not have any course on this topic. Maybe [the institution and faculty] think that it is easy and we can learn by ourselves. But it is difficult. It is very difficult.\"_  
Many studies have also pointed this out [13,43]. Often institutions think that citation conventions can be learned by the students themselves; however, in reality, citations and reference lists are quite difficult and confusing and should be taught properly.  
These findings show the alarming situation of online university students' awareness and understanding of plagiarism in Pakistan. More than one fourth of them (76 out of 267) indicated their lack of awareness and a poor understanding of plagiarism and citing conventions, which has been a recurring theme in the literature [13,29,42]. Although the students had some idea about their own abilities and knowledge (or the lack of it) about plagiarism, it might be possible that many students are simply unaware about their lack of awareness. They might think that they know what plagiarism is, but their knowledge could be either completely wrong or incomplete.