Abstract

Undergraduates access electronic information resources for academic activities, however, this comes with abiding by good ethical behavior such as a negative attitude towards plagiarism. Literature have reported undergraduates’ negative or positive attitude towards plagiarism in Nigeria, but few studies have been carried out in Oyo State and have not investigated how access to electronic information resources influence attitude towards plagiarism. Therefore, this study examined access to Electronic Information Resources (EIR) and Attitude towards Plagiarism (ATP) by undergraduates in Faculty of Science in three universities in Oyo state, Nigeria. The descriptive survey design of the correlational type was adopted for this study. The population comprised 10,664 undergraduates from Faculty of Science in Universities of Ibadan (UI) Lead City University (LCU) and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH). A two-stage random sampling technique was adopted to draw 336 respondents. Data was collected using a questionnaire and analysed with frequencies, mean, standard deviation, Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation and multiple regression. The highest number of respondents in LCU (100%) and UI (89.5%) aged between 21-25years while LAUTECH (54.8%) are 18-20years. The most accessible EIR in UI and LCU were e-journals (x ̅=4.31;x ̅=4.08) and in LAUTECH, the Internet (x ̅=3.65). There is a positive ATP in UI (x ̅=3.44), LCU (x ̅=3.38), and LAUTECH (x ̅=2.92). A significant relationship exists between access to EIR and ATP in UI (R=.284, p 0.05). There is a joint significant influence of access to EIR and ATP in UI (R=0.448, adj.R2of 0.180,F=9.439) and LAUTECH (R=0.372, adj.R2 of 0.130,F=17.292), but not significant in LCU (R=0.065, adj.R2 of -0.195,F=0.022). Access to electronic information resources is a predictor of attitude towards plagiarism by undergraduates. Therefore, librarians should make use of different electronic platforms that are accessible to the students in providing instructions on how to write without plagiarising to reduce the rate of plagiarism among the undergraduates.