PERCEPTIONS OF PLAGIARISM AMONG INTERNATIONAL AND U.S. STUDENTS: RETHINKING INSTRUCTIONAL RESPONSES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Plagiarism carries serious consequences in U.S. higher education, yet many international ESL students may arrive with limited exposure to citation practices or inconsistent understandings of academic integrity.Drawing on findings from a comparative analysis of international and U.S. students' perceptions of plagiarism, this paper proposes a pedagogical intervention aimed at strengthening international students' text-sourcing skills and mitigating instances of plagiarism.Data were collected through faculty and ESL staff focus groups, surveys of international and U.S. students, and post-course surveys of international ESL students.Findings revealed that international and U.S. students shared more similarities than differences in their perceptions of plagiarism, the factors contributing to it, and the difficulty level associated with text-sourcing tasks.Both groups identified a lack of citation knowledge and understanding of plagiarism as one of the key reasons students plagiarize.International ESL students reported that explicit training in paraphrasing, citation, and source integration was the most beneficial component of an instructional intervention implemented in their first-year seminar course.The results highlight the benefits of