Discovering Faculty Awareness of Plagiarism: A Study Among Information Management Students in Sarawak
Suhaida Halamy1*, Nurfaizah Kamarudin1, Mohsinin Mohsin1
1 School of Information Science, College of Computing, Informatics, and Media, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Accepted: 15 April 2023 | Published: 30 April 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajress.2023.5.1.18
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Abstract: Plagiarism is the most prevalent issue in today's educational environment. With the assistance of various technological advancements, the act of claiming someone else works as their own has become a crucial issue at the tertiary education level. Thus, it will have an impact on the production of quality graduates in the future. This study aims to discover the plagiarism awareness among undergraduate students. The study was carried out at Universiti Teknologi MARA Sarawak branch, Samarahan campus. A quantitative approach was taken. Data was gathered from questionnaires distributed to the students of School of Information Science, College of Computing, Informatics, and Media. A total of 108 undergraduate students participated in the survey. The results indicated that, in general, the students understood the plagiarism issue, including the significant consequences they faced. The students were also aware of the plagiarism policy. The results of this study might be used to promote a viable approach for eradicating and preventing academic plagiarism and misconduct among undergraduate students.
Keywords: plagiarism, undergraduate students, awareness, education
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1. Introduction
1.1 Plagiarism
Plagiarism, from the word ‘plagiarize’ is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source, and to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source”
(Merriam-Webster, n.d.). There are many research and discussions done on the plagiarism issues. According to Miracle (2019), plagiarism is a common phenomenon in academia, however it has gotten least attention, despite being a major problem among public, state, and private universities. Plagiarism is described as the act of misrepresenting someone else's work or ideas as one's own. It usually relates to stealing and is frequently used for educational stealing (Demirdover, 2019), the intentional stealing of information from other sources (Tsekea, Joyce, & Madziko, 2021).
1.2 Plagiarism awareness
The advancement of technology, such as the Internet, provides a great opportunity for those who use publicly available information to claim it as their own without crediting the creators.
The accessibility with which information may be acquired, modified, and transmitted over the internet is one of the most common causes for plagiarism. Thus, students' pervasive usage of
the Internet has facilitated the 'cut and paste' method to research (Babalola, 2012). The question is, are they aware on the plagiarism? Do they clearly understand what plagiarism is or stealing other’s work without acknowledging the creators? Some have been aware of their plagiarism behaviour, whereas others seem to be unaware, and majority of students comprehended what plagiarism constituted (Mahmud, Mahmud, Hassan, & Lateh, 2021). Why do they plagiarize?
How do they prevent this issue? Do they know about existence of an information literacy class that focuses on properly referencing and citing the creators?
According to Elshafei and Jahangir (2020), students identified time constraints and concerns, as well as psycho-social factors, as the most important causes of plagiarism, as well as a lack of awareness and inadequate plagiarism policies. They plagiarize for a variety of reasons, including a lack of creativity, academic pressure, and procrastination (Demirdover, 2019).
Universities and institutions should made plagiarism a required course or programme for students in order to promote awareness about plagiarism in terms of the types, policy, and consequences. Students can benefit from being aware of plagiarism as it will aid them interpret their concepts and endeavors in writing by strengthening writing abilities, which will enhance their confidence in generating quality research papers (Miracle, 2019). Therefore, the objective of this study is to discover the plagiarism awareness among undergraduates’ students.
2. Literature Review
A newspaper report about the occurrence of plagiarism in the production of an assignment among students due to time constraints (Nas Norziela Nasbah - September 13, 2022, [email protected]) increases the need to survey the extent of student awareness of plagiarism. One of the main reasons students commit plagiarism is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the definition and types of acts classified as plagiarism.
Numerous studies have been undertaken in various higher institutions worldwide to determine students' knowledge and awareness of plagiarism and its forms and causes. In Malaysia, students are introduced to plagiarism activities at the higher education level, and usually, they need more knowledge about plagiarism (Yusof & Masrom 2011). Rodhiya et al. (2020) found that most students claimed to understand plagiarism in the study of students' understanding and awareness of plagiarism. However, most of them appeared to need a fundamental understanding of the various types of plagiarism, resulting in unintentional plagiarism. By assessing students' awareness, Sankar's (Sankar, 2020) study concluded that severe workloads, rationalizations for plagiarism, and ineffective consequences were the most significant causes of plagiarism. According to Klein (2011) and Sibomana et al. (2018), students plagiarize because they either need to recognize the problem, have a faulty understanding of the issue, or do not think it has any bearing on their actions.
Alhadlaq et al. (2020) The study examined attitudes and perceptions of plagiarism among students in Saudi Arabia, demonstrating a correlation between a rejection of plagiarism and high student grades, that medical ethics students received the highest scores, and that most of the study's participants rejected plagiarism. Wan Hanna Melini et al., 2018 examined that final year students were found to have the highest awareness of plagiarism. They were able to make a clear comparison of the level of seriousness of the types of plagiarism reported. According to Mohamed et a., (2018), all educational institutions should teach their students about plagiarism awareness while also applauding creative thinkers and authors for their work. It will encourage aspiring writers to improve their writing abilities. Most studies on plagiarism issues
conclude that students need clear information about the types of plagiarism and need clarification and consider their actions plagiarism.
3. Methodology
A total of 108 undergraduate students which comprised of 25 males and 75 females from Diploma of Information Management, School of Information Science, College of Computing, Informatics, and Media, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak Branch were the samples of this study. The study used quantitative methods. The questionnaire was used as the study instrument for plagiarism awareness among university students.
4. Finding and discussion
The data was collected from undergrads of UiTM Sarawak Branch, Diploma of Information Management. The questionnaire was conducted to discover plagiarism awareness among undergraduate students and 108 responses received. The statistic of demographic profile (Table 1) showed that most of the respondent are female (75%) thus, respondents are mainly undergrads from Diploma of Information Management (100%). Hence, most of the respondent are from semester 1 (43.5%), while the least are from semester 2 (0.9%).
Table 1: Demographic measurement
Dimension Category Percentage
Gender
Male 25
Female 75
Program
Diploma Information
Management 100
Semester
1 43.5
2 0.9
3 20.4
4 9.3
5 25.9
Figure 1: Respondent awareness on plagiarism
The first crucial question of this study is the respondent were enquired on their awareness upon plagiarism (Figure 1). 52.70% of them strongly agreed that they understand the meaning of plagiarism while only 5.50% strongly disagree with that statement. Moderately, 41.60%
strongly agree that they understand that sentence need to paraphrase if quoted from original source, while only 5.50% that strongly disagree with that statement. While the two lowest percentage are (32.40%) they are aware of plagiarism policy; besides if a student violates the rules on plagiarism, he or she will be caught and face significant consequences.
Figure 2: Types of plagiarism
Besides, the next question deliberated on types of plagiarism that respondents are aware of.
The most well-known plagiarism goes to cut and paste online sources (40.7%). Thus, the less known plagiarism is made up source (2.8%). The moderately known plagiarism among respondents is rearrange words and copied from a friend (13.9%). Such respond occurred because they were involved directly or indirectly with plagiarism issues while doing their assignment to finish their diploma.
Figure 3: Reasons of plagiarizing
Finally, the question was discussed on the reasons of plagiarizing. Respondents pointed out that inability to conduct research (34.3%) as the main reason while the least reason goes to culture/trend (0.9%), thus the moderate reason is the pressure deadline (17.6%). From the evidence above, it can be seen that most likely the undergrads are aware of plagiarism issues.
Hence the respondents mentioned that laziness (26.9%) somehow can be the reason of the plagiarism issue to them.
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
Plagiarism can be an easier alternative, rather than putting the effort into completing the assignment. Plagiarism is not viewed as a moral obligation but rather a rule that prevents them from copying and getting grades. (Koirala, P. K., Dema, Y., Malik, H, & Berglund, A., 2022.)
Plagiarism awareness among undergrads seems to be prevalent. It is understood in various effort been made by the institutions and the educators to fostering the awareness in plagiarism intensely. Valdivia, V. E. R., Goycochea, H. A. B., & Dávila, F. A. D, 2020 supported by the findings in a study, since students said they cheat in cases where they do not have enough time to hand in their assignments or were unsure if they were cheating. Through an educational approach, professors shall be able to know what the contextual characteristics of students are and in which areas to take action to reinforce the academic integrity.
For further research, it is recommended to conduct studies focusing on all matters through some training and workshop in order to instill the academic integrity among the undergrads hence to nurture them on the huge impact of committing plagiarism.
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