2nd Draft ULAB

1 | Plagiarism Among Education Students in UTM
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Definition
An act of dishonesty among students in university is always associated with
plagiarism especially in the academia world. In fact, plagiarism can be defined in several
ways according to the contexts it is put on. According to American Heritage Dictionary
(2014), plagiarize can be defined as to steal and use the ideas or writings of another writer
as ones own work. Besides that, as suggested by Oxford Dictionary (2014), plagiarism is
an action of taking and using another persons thoughts, writing, and invention and so forth
as ones own. Furthermore, based on the studies made by Moulton and Robinson (2002),
they state that plagiarism can also be seen as depriving authors of profit that is rightfully
theirs which theft. In addition, they also highlight that depriving authors of credit might also
be a form of theft.
Having read the past studies and the dictionaries above, it is concluded that those are
some reliable definitions given by the online resources. Based on what we understand,
plagiarism is an unethical act that is done by some desperate students who want to achieve
good grades by taking shortcuts to complete their assignment which in this situation, they
steal other peoples ideas without acknowledging them appropriately.
However, despite of all the definitions given by those sources, some students
especially educational students in University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) seem unaware
that they have actually committed plagiarism. To them, such act is just one of the processes in
completing their assignments and it must be done for if not, the assignments could not be
completed. Thus, we are called to conduct an investigation regarding this serious yet
unresolved matter. After having a discussion, we decided to study and investigate The Cause
and Effect of Plagiarism towards Educational Students in UTM which eventually will
become the title of this paper.
1.2 Background of the Study
Continuing with the next point which is the background of the problem, we have
found some common drawbacks of plagiarism in the past studies which leads to the purpose
of the production of this paper. In the reading process, we discover that plagiarism causes lots
of negative effects which include the non-developing essence of ethical values such as
honesty, integrity, personal efforts and respect for others works. But worst of all, such acts

are hard to be detected and those theft, almost all of them, are still repeating the unethical
act without being caught by the right authority. We are actually concerned that if such act is
not prevented, it will become a common norm in our academic world. Thus, this paper is
produced. Moreover, even though such drawbacks will not seem to affect the students now, it
will eventually be a severe problem in the long term. For instance, the quality of their work
will continue to be degraded or decreasing from time to time. The consequences are severe.
Without them knowing it, such act will cause them to not be hired by their future employers
because they are lack of quality values which nowadays, has become a crucial requirement to
step into the working world.
1.3 Problem Statement
Plagiarism cases happen frequently among educational student in UTM and what are the
factors and effects that contribute to such act.
1.4 Objectives of the Study
Our objective is to investigate empirically the factors and effects of plagiarism that is
done by education students in UTM. Besides, we also have narrowed the focus of our
investigation to find the solutions for the problem of plagiarism in UTM.
Moving on with the next point, the studies are also being conducted to answer several
questions which are:
How serious is the problem of plagiarism among educational students in UTM?
What are the causes and effects of plagiarism among educational students in UTM?
We believe that the answer to this specific question will help us to help the educational
faculty to prevent plagiarism among the students smoothly and effectively. Thus, such effort
is crucial because it will help the educational students to be more ethical in the academic
world which also increasing their point and value in the context of legitimacy for the sake of
their own future and this is the significance of our investigation.
Last but not least, we are focusing on two main ways to collect our data for this study
which the first one is through the primary source. Regarding to this matter, we are going to
distribute questionnaires among the Educational student in UTM. Approximately 62 students
will be chosen randomly regardless their races and genders. Plus, several interview sessions
will be conducted among these students and the aim is for us to have a concrete data to

support our investigation. Nevertheless, we are also using the secondary source such as
article journals from the previous studies and so forth to have a better understanding on how
to conduct our investigation. These two sources are crucial as they, hopefully, will help to
guide us throughout the investigation.


2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Cases of Plagiarism
Plagiarism is widespread in academia. For instance, Guterman (2008) revealed that
more than 70,000 articles abstracts appeared disturbingly similar to other published work
when scanned by a new search programThe researchers examined 2600 of these abstract
by hand and found three instances of what appears to be outright plagiarism. This evidence
clearly shows that plagiarism has spread and become one of the major problems in the world
of academia. Furthermore, according to Clarke (2006), he reported that a paper submitted to
AIS-sponsored major conference was found to be highly plagiarized. It was measured that
approximately 70 percent of the paper was copied almost exactly, without quotation marks.
Another case is that politician or corporate member usually use prepared speech writen by
someone else ( Brian Martin, 1994). Many well-known authors have been accused of
plagiarism, including William Shakespeare (Julius, 1998), Mark Twain (Kruse, 1990),
George Orwell (Rose, 1992), Alex Haley (Taylor, 1995), Samuel Beckett (Acheson, 1978)
and Edgar Allen Poe (McMullen, 1995). Song writers including Celine Dion (LeBlanc, 1997)
and Michael474 C. Park Jackson (Dezzani, 1999) and lm directors such as Steven Spielberg
(Kessler, 1998; Zeitchik, 1998) have faced plagiarism charges in court.
Before copyright laws was established, it was difcult for writers to establish let-
alone protect authorship, but by the middle of 18th century, plagiarism was more clearly
dened by copyright laws and plagiarists were confronted with changing public attitudes
towards literary property and strong moral views of literary theft (Goldgar, 2001).
2.2 Factors of Plagiarism
The problem is why do students plagiarize? Some students plagiarize unintentionally.
It occurs when a student fails to adopt (perhaps because they do not know) proper protocols
for referring to academic material, including appropriate ways of quoting, acknowledging
ideas and compiling reference lists (Mills, 1994). Secondly, students plagiarize because they
have strong desire to obtain good grades. According to Straw (2002), he has stated that
students have higher tendency to copy peoples work when they want to achieve higher GPA.
Therefore, cheating becomes the price of an A (Whiteman & Gordon, 2001). Moreover,
poor time management is another factors of plagiarism among students. Students lifestyle
commonly involve a lot of activities such as active social life, commitment to university
sports representative, families responsibilities and pressure to complete multiple assignments.

Silverman (2002) concluded that students hectic lives leave them to have higher temptation
to cheat. Another study have found that students attitudes towards teachers and class is
related to the reasons of cheating. Some students cheat because they think that the assignment
given by that particular teacher is meaningless (Howard, 2002). Burnett (2002) emphasises
the importance of bonding between teacher and students, especially trust. This is because
when students have good relationship with their teacher, they will dedicate themselves to
complete their assignments given by the teacher without taking shortcuts.
2.3 Effects of Plagiarism
Plagiarism among students has brought out several negative effects. Plagiarism in
academia affects institutional reputation. Reputation is closely related to the academic
integrity of both university staff and students. Spreading of plagiarism news of a particular
university can undermine institutional reputation (Sharman and Wilshire, 2007). Moreover, if
students plagiarize to complete their assignment, they will learn nothing from the assignment
given (Abdolmohammadi and Baker, 2007) and plagiarism also inhibits students intellectual
development (Yeung et al., 2002). Another effect of plagiarism is the loss of degree or job.
When the authority of the university discovers that the students have committed plagiarism,
the students will lose their opportunities to graduate (Shane, 2013). In addition, a professor
who is found guilty in academia will also be penalized to lose his job and reputation.
2.4 Approaches to Discourage Plagiarism
There are some approaches to discourage students from committing plagiarism. First,
examples should be offered for the students to refer while doing their assignment. Ii is quite
beneficial in avoiding plagiarism, if they have specific examples of what is, and is not,
plagiarism to use as a guide when they prepare their papers (Birnbaum and Goscilo, 2001).
For example, instructor can provide them with a paragraph of original text followed by a
series of sentence based on the text. There are two types of series which are series with
proper citation and another series with improper practices. After that, students are asked to
identify which series is considered as plagiarism. Other than that, instructor also can explain
to the students on why they should not plagiarise by giving some examples of consequences
of cheating. One of the example that will be given is that students who caught red handed in
plagiarism will not allowed to graduate on time.

The past studies are very important as their findings and results are relevant to this papers
main focus which are factors and effects of plagiarism among students and also the ways to
avoid plagiarism.


3.0 Research Methodology
3.1 Introduction
This section discusses the methodology of the research. The main purposes of the
research are to investigate the factors and effects of plagiarism among educational
students in UTM. To assess and evaluate the factors and effect of plagiarism, the
educational campus of UTM with the capacity of approximately 500 students was chosen.
However, our respondents were only the second year undergraduates. Data for the
research was collected through questionnaire and interview.
3.2 Research Instrument
This research utilized both the quantitative and qualitative research methodology. The
instrument used to collect the data was through questionnaires and interviews.
3.2.1. Questionnaire
A set of questionnaire containing 22 questions divided into four sections. Different
question-types, such as general category, ranking, scales and open-ended were used in the
questionnaire. The different sections of the questionnaire were; 1) personal information, 2)
about your past schooling, 3) reasons of plagiarism and 4) suggestion. The questionnaire
was piloted to a group of 15 students to assess its validity before it was distributed.
3.2.2. Interview
For the qualitative data, we held interviews and extract students opinions regarding the
effect of plagiarism in our discussion part. We have interviewed 2 education students, a
female and a male student as we believe it will help us to gain more information from both
genders perspective. Two questions were asked to the students during the interview
session. The two questions are as follow:
1. From your opinion, what would be the consequences of plagiarism towards students?
And can you please elaborate them one by one?
2. Would you mind to elaborate your point?


3.3 Respondent of the Study
The respondents of the study were second year undergraduate students from 6 different
courses which is SPPL, SPPH, SPPR, SPPQ, SPPJ and SPPS. The number of second year
undergraduates in education faculty is approximately 120 students. Table below shows
the number of the students that answered our questionnaire for each courses:
COURSE NUMBER OF STUDENTS
SPPL 12
SPPH 10
SPPR 8
SPPQ 8
SPPJ 12
SPPS 12
TOTAL 62
Table 3.3.1: The number of respondents from different courses
So a total of 62 questionnaires were distributed to the students from education faculty in
UTM. The entire questionnaire that has been distributed was returned back and of these
numbers, 26 were male students while the rest (36) were female. All the 62 students were
all Malaysian.
For the interview part, we also applied the same thing, which is choosing the interviewees
at random. Two students from two different courses were chosen by us. The students
names that we have interviewed were as follow:
1. Mr. Muhammad Izrul Syafiq Bin Abdul Razak
2. Ms. Beatrice Eugena

3.4 Research Procedure
Before the actual data collection period, a pilot study was conducted to assess the validity
of the research instruments. A total of 15 students were involved in the pilot study which
is also the students from ULAB class.

During the actual study, the questionnaires were distributed to the representatives of
each course in educational faculty. The representative will then distribute the
questionnaires to his/her class member. The students were chosen at random by the
representative of the class. Once they have done answered the entire question, it was
returned back to us. Since the total of our questionnaires were only 62, so we cannot
distributed it equally for each courses, thus, what we did was distributed it at random to
those representatives.
For, the interview part, we asked the two interviewees two questions and the
questions were focusing on the effect of plagiarism. The questions have been stated in the
3.3 which is the Research Instrument part. Their opinions were recorded by us using voice
recorder and then we wrote it back exactly like what has been said by them to make it
easier for us to transcript the data.
3.5 Data Analysis
To analyze the quantitative data, we entered the data into computer using Microsoft Excel.
The results were presented through frequency counts and other descriptive statistics. For
the open-ended question, we transcribed the data based on the similarities among the
comments given by the students. Whereas for the interview, we also transcribed and
extract it based on how concise the opinions were in related to our topic. All the findings
either qualitative or quantitative were synthesized and summarized by us in the finding
and discussion part.


4.0 Findings and Discussion
4.1 Introduction
An investigation was carried out to study the factors and effects of plagiarism among
education students in UTM. This section will discuss the findings and discussion on the data
that we have collected through distribution of questionnaire towards the respondents.
Throughout our survey, we have found out that most of the respondents have come across the
word plagiarism before they came to UTM. What is interesting in this finding is that even
though most of them have heard the word plagiarism, the act of plagiarism is still common
among the respondents. Surprisingly the number of those who have heard the word
plagiarism which is about 43 students and this figure has exceeded the number of those
who have not heard the word plagiarism which is 19 students.
Regarding this matter, teacher has become the prior source which the students get to know
the word plagiarism from with the number of 33 respondents. The rest of the sources are
Internet (17 respondents), television (6 respondents) and the least which is newspaper (3
respondents). This is because plagiarism is a term that has been used in academia for so many
years, so the teacher tend to put a lot more focus to increase the awareness among the
students about plagiarism. Plus, the teacher is the main source of students knowledge.
Other than that, the data also shows that most of the respondents teachers in the past
schoolings have told them that they have plagiarized and the range is between 1 to 5 times.
Remarkably, the number of that respondents is 37 which is more than half of the respondents.
It means that the majority have been warned by their teachers. Although they have been told
by the teacher that they have done such mistakes, they are still repeating it.
It is found that the same occurrence has happened as the majority of the respondents which is
35 students that have copied the words or ideas from other people without stating citation
between the range of 1 to 5 times. The frequency of plagiarizing is actually in moderate level
as there are 14 respondents have copied more than 5 times.


4.2 Factors of Plagiarism

Figure 4.1 Factors of Plagiarism among Students in UTM.
Figure 4.1 shows the factors of plagiarism among education students in UTM. At first, there
were 12 factors stated in the questionnaire to determine exactly how many students agreed for
each of the factors. As a result, 7 out of 12 factors had been agreed by more than half of the
students. Those factors are such as the easiness to attain information from Internet access,
strong desire to obtain good grades, uneasiness to get caught, most assignment are given at
the same time, lack of paraphrasing and summarizing knowledge, high expectations from
family and lecturers reluctance to take action against students who plagiarized.
From the figure above, it is clearly illustrates that the factor of easiness to attain
information from internet access got the highest number of students who agreed on. The
number of students was 50 out of 62 respondents with the percentage of 81%. We have
speculated that there are some reasons on why there were large number of students
plagiarized by attaining information from Internet. One of the reasons is due to the existence
of Wikipedia on Internet. Wikipedia is a website that provides wide range of information from
different aspects for the users to refer. As most of the information is available, students tend
to copy it from Wikipedia. Secondly, UTM has wide coverage of free Wi-Fi Internet
connection for students and staff to access. With the convenience of Internet connection
provided, students can plagiarize easily. Lastly, the advancement of technology devices such
as smartphones provide with high speed Internet connection allow the students to access
Internet with just a few touches on the mobiles screen.
0
10
20
30
40
50
50
35 35
36
35
43
34
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

S
t
u
d
e
n
t
s

Factors of Plagiarism
FACTORS OF PLAGI ARISM
AMONG STUDENTS I N UTM

Other than that, the factor that got second highest number of students who agreed on
was the high expectations from family to achieve good grades. The number of students who
agreed that this statement was one of the plagiarism factors is 43 with the percentage of 69%.
In our opinion, we think that those families which have high expectation on their children are
those who have high socio-economy status. The success of their parents in their career makes
them have the tendency to give a lot of hope towards their children so that their children can
be successful like them when they grow up. In contrast, families that are poor may also put
high expectation on their children as they wish that their children will have a more fortunate
life in the future. High expectation from family may create high pressure on the students. The
students will have the sense of high responsibility to achieve good results so that they will not
disappoint their parents. Hence, they have the desire to take shortcut which is plagiarizing to
obtain good grades.
Followed by the third highest number of students who agreed that one of the
statements that contributed plagiarism among them which was most assignments were given
at the same period. The number of students who agreed that this statement affected the act of
plagiarism was 36 out of 62 with the percentage of 58%. We found that students from TESL
course are taking 9 subjects in the fourth semester which is this semester. The number of
subjects taken in TESL course is considered as a lot as compared to other courses such as
Pure Physics or Computer Science in which the students from those courses are taking only
around 6 subjects in a semester. Therefore, there are a lot of assignments given due to large
quantity of subjects taken. In addition, most of the assignments are given at the same time
with the date of submission fell on the same week. Therefore, students who have poorer time
management will have higher tendency to plagiarize because they know that they will fail to
complete their assignment on time.
Other than those top three factors, having strong desire to obtain good grades is also
considered as one of the plagiarism factors as there were 35 students agreed on it with the
percentage of 56%. Based on our speculations, one of the reasons that contributes the strong
desire is to apply scholarships. If a student achieved high CGPA at the end of the semester,
he or she has the opportunity to be selected as scholarship holder e.g. Jabatan Perkhidmatan
Awam Scholarship (JPA). Besides, some students care about their reputation so they want to
maintain good grades throughout their life. The strong desire emerged among them have
driven them into the wrong track which is to plagiarize.

Besides, there are other two factors which had the same number of agreement by
students as the fourth factor discussed earlier which had 35 students with the percentage of
56%. The first one was uneasy to get caught by the authority. It means that they have been
committing plagiarism for quite a long time. In our point of view based on our analysis, we
think that this is because students are getting smart in doing plagiarism to avoid getting
caught red handed. For example, they have the ability to change the structure of the sentence
from the original sentence without stating citation. Another factor is lack of paraphrasing and
summarizing skills. In fact, we have found that only TESL students have studied a subject
called Academic Skills. Through this subject, students were taught to paraphrase and
summarize in correct methods and the way to prevent them from committing plagiarism.
However, other education courses do not have this subject. So, students from other courses
who are lack of paraphrasing and summarizing knowledge will lead them to plagiarize
indirectly.
Lastly, the factor that had the lowest number of students that agreed on was lecturers
reluctance to take action against students who plagiarized. The number of students was 34
with the percentage of 55%. This factor occupied the lowest percentage because most of the
lecturers have taken action against them. Nevertheless, there are still some lecturers who
ignore their students poor behavior because they just want their students to obtain high
grades regardless of how they achieve it. Students will eventually have the bad habit of
plagiarizing throughout their university route.

4.3 Effects of Plagiarism
As contrast with the procedure of collecting the data for the factors of plagiarism, we
have decided to interview 2 students from our very own Education Faculty instead of
distributing the questionnaires to them. We have also decided to interview students from both
genders; a female and male student, as we believe it will help us to gain more information
from both genders perspective.
Also, we believe that by getting the information from both genders perspective, it
will help us to broaden our view on the effect of plagiarism. Not only that, we would also
want our data to be legit and relevant as we try to push out any sexism, racism, and etc. issues
from being raised later on by the readers. Moreover, both students have actually been

randomly picked by us to be the respondents for our investigation on this particular matter
and it is done so without any specific reason.
Furthermore, to our surprise, both respondents agree to allow us to publish their
names as well as their faces in this paper. Our first respondent is the male student, namely
Muhammad Izrul Syafiq bin Abd Razak, and that leaves Beatrice Eugena to be our second
respondent. To make it synchronize with our first interview, we used the same questions as
we did with Mr. Syafiq.
Other than that, both students are interviewed in different sessions but they are in the
same day. Mr. Izrul has agreed to be the first respondent to be interviewed by us. Below were
the questions that we asked them and their respond have been summarized by us into
information which, we believed, it would help the readers to comprehend it better.
Questions
1. In your opinion, what would be the consequences of plagiarism toward students? And
can you please elaborate them one by one?
2. Would you mind elaborate that point Mr./Ms._________?

From the both interview sessions, we have come out with several effect of plagiarism
based on the opinions of Mr. Izrul and Ms. Eugina. According to Mr. Syafiq, plagiarism will
destroy the academic reputation of a person. Either for the students or even the lectures, both
will face the same consequences if they are being caught plagiarizing by the community or
the authority.
As mentioned by Mr. Izrul during the interview, ones academic career for instance a
lecturer or even a student will be destroyed in just a blink of an eye if he or she is accused
with an act of plagiarism. It is because the lecturer is the person who is trusted by the
community to provide the students with the pure knowledge. Thus, if one is charged with
plagiarism, indeed he or she will lose his or her credibility as the one who should educate the
youngsters. Other than that, he also highlighted that a student might be suspended or even
expelled if he or she is charged with plagiarism offenses. Worst, that particular students
academic record will forever be held by him. As for that, it will be hard for him to enter other
universities or colleges as they do take this ethic offense very seriously.

Based on Mr. Syafiqs statement, we could tell that he is actually aware of the
consequences of plagiarism. We were able to conclude this as he managed to list the
consequences one by one from a broad perspective. By that we mean, he did not just view
plagiarism from a students perspective but he viewed it from the perspective of a lecturer
also. The examples that have been given by him were quite remarkable too as we can always
relate them to the reality point of view. Besides, they are clear, compact, and excellent.
Surprisingly, Ms. Eugina, differently from Mr. Syafiq, put more stress on the students
future career. According to her, we are not going to be a student for our whole life. Thus, if
a student keeps plagiarizing on his work, he might face a great difficulty once he works later
on. It is because his degree is not actually his, so when he enters the career world, he might
face problems as he has to produce work based on his own effort. From our understanding,
what she was trying to tell us is that, if the students do not practice to do work by their own
during university life, it is impossible for them to success in their career later on. On the other
hand, if they being caught red handed plagiarizing other peoples work by their lecturers,
their future might be destroyed instantly. Worst, they might not graduate from that university.
This will make their life harder as nowadays degree is the most important thing to apply for a
post. Other than that, the students who always plagiarize during their universitys life might
also face a great problem when they are working later on. It is because real-life work is much
tougher and harder than any universitys assignments. Hence, we scare that it might hard for
those students to survive in their working life.
Continuing with the next point, Ms. Eugina did mention that plagiarism can always lead
to the destruction of any relationship between students and their friends and students between
their lecturers. During the interview session was going on, she did give us an example that we
believe to reflect the exact real-life situation. We quote directly from what she was saying,
lets say, we are dutiful student, of course we will be upset if we put a great effort but then
find out that our friends who plagiarize cut the corners by achieving mark much higher than
us, right? Whereas if a lecturer finds that we have plagiarized, he or she will develop a sense
of distrust and is more likely to scrutinize our work going forward. So even if we put our own
effort for our next assignment, I am sure that the lecturer will not believe in us anymore. It is
a sad thing indeed we need our lecturers blessing, so my advice is we must not plagiarize
even for once, because if you did, you might face all these consequences.

What we can conclude from Ms. Euginas statement is she is, same as Mr. Syafiq, well
enlightened on the consequences of plagiarism. Based on the examples that were given by her,
they reflected her knowledge of the act of plagiarism very well. We assume that she might
learn all these issues from her previous experiences as they were so vivid and detail.
In conclusion, we found that both of our respondents agreed that plagiarism leaves
negative effects to the students as well as to the lecturers.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anglil-Carter, S. (2000). Stolen language?: Plagiarism in writing, 248 268.
Ashworth, P., Bannister, P., Thorne, P., & Students on the Qualitative Research Methods
Course Unit. (1997). Guilty in whose eyes? University students' perceptions of cheating and
plagiarism in academic work and assessment. Studies in Higher Education, 22(2), 187-203.
Auer, N. J., & Krupar, E. M. (2001). Mouse click plagiarism: The role of technology in
plagiarism and the librarian's role in combating it. Library Trends,49(3), 415-432.
Beth, A.F. & Michael, J.Z. (2011). Educational Approaches for Discouraging Plagiarsim.
Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigation, 29, 100 103.
Blum, S. D. (2011). My word!: Plagiarism and college culture. Cornell University Press.
Carroll, J., & Appleton, J. (2001). Plagiarism: a good practice guide.
Curtis, G. J. and Popal, R. (2011). An examination of Factors related to Plagiarism and a
Five-year Follow-up of Plagiarism at an Australian University. International Journal for
Educational Integrity. Retrieved on December 10, 2013, from
http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/journals/index.php/IJEI/
Glazer, M. P. (1996). A New Tradition of Courageous Dissent. New York: St. Marin's Press.
Gomez, J. (2013). Dishonest Behavior and Plagiarism by University Students: An
Application to Management Studies. Social and Behavioral Sciences. 83, 766 770.
LaFollette, M. C. (1992). Stealing into print: fraud, plagiarism, and misconduct in scientific
publishing. Univ of California Press.
Martin, B. (1994). Plagiarism: A Misplaced Emphasis. Journal of Information Ethics. 3(2), 36
47.
Park, Chris. (2010). In Other (Peoples) Words: Plagiarism by University Students
Literature and Lessons, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. United Kingdom:
Lancaster University.
Pecorari, D. (2003). Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-
language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(4), 317-345.

Pennycook, A. (1996). Borrowing others' words: Text, ownership, memory, and
plagiarism. TESOL quarterly, 30(2), 201-230.
Rothschild, D. (2011). Five Common Excuses for Plagiarism. Retrieved on March 30, 2011,
from http://www.ithenticate.com/plagiarism-detection-blog/bid/52928/5-Common-Excuses-
for-Plagiarism
Salleh, M. I. M. et al. (2012). The Effect of Plagiarism on the Corporate Image in the Higher
Education: An Extended TPB Model. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity.
2 (4).
Scanlon, P. M., & Neumann, D. R. (2002). Internet plagiarism among college
students. Journal of College Student Development, 43(3), 374-385.
Scollon, R. (1995). Plagiarism and ideology: Identity in intercultural discourse.Language in
Society, 24(01), 1-28.
Shahabuddin, S. (2009). Plagiarism in Academia. International Journal of Teaching and
Learning in Higher Education. Central Michigan University. 21 (3), 353-359.
Walker, J. (1998). Student Plagiarism in Universities: What Are We Doing About It? Higher
Education Research and Development. 17, 103.


APPENDICES
Appendix A: Questionnaire
QUESTIONNARE
PLAGIARISM AMONG EDUCATION STUDENTS IN UTM

FACULTY OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA
CONDUCTED BY ULAB 2112(34) STUDENTS
MONITORED BY DR.MOHD HILMI BIN HAMZAH
Introduction to Questionnaire
Based on the past studies, we have found that there are lots of plagiarism cases among university
students. And this fact has become such a norm in academia. We would like to investigate the
factors and effects of plagiarism among educational students in UTM. The answers provided by
respondents will be confidential.

Section I: Personal Information
Tick the appropriate box or write in the requested information:
1. Sex: male female
2. Nationality: _____________________________
3. Major Field of study: ______________________
4. Year of study: ________


Section II: About Your Past Schooling
1. Before you came to UTM, was the word plagiarismever mentioned to you?
Yes No
2. If yes, from which source(s) did you get to know the word plagiarismfrom?
Newspaper Teacher Television Internet

3. The definition of plagiarism is simply known as to take and use another persons
thoughts, writing, and invention and so forth as ones own. In other words, it means
you do not correctly show which words are yours and which words are from another
writer. How often did any of your teachers in the past schooling ever tell you (i. e., by
means of spoken or written comments) that you have made this kind of mistake in
your own written work?
Never 1 5 times More than 5 times

4. To what extent do you think that you have copied the words or ideas from other
people without stating citation?
Never 1 5 times More than 5 times

5. Have any of your instructors in your secondary/tertiary education told you that you
have used others work without stating them properly?

Never 1-5 times More than 5 times

Section III Reasons of Plagiarism
To choose your most appropriate answer, please tick ( ) inside a box of the table
below.
In your opinion, to what extent
do you agree with the statements
below?
1
Strongly
Disagree
2
Disagree
3
Agree
4
Strongly
Agree
1. I can attain information
easily from Internet
accessing

2. I do not understand the
concept of plagiarism

3. I have a strong desire to
obtain good grades

4. I believe that I would not
get caught easily

5. I have a poor time
management

6. I cannot cope with
assignments as they are
too difficult

7. I do not put much effort
in doing the task given

8. I cannot handle
assignments as they are
all given at the same time


9. I do not have the proper
knowledge of
paraphrasing and
summarising

10. I have badly designed
assessment tasks

11. I have a family that has
high expectations on me
to obtain good grades

12. I find lecturers reluctant
to take action against
students who plagiarise.

Section IV Suggestion
1. In your opinion, can you suggest a way to reduce the plagiarism cases?
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________


Appendix B: Interview Scripts

Figure A: Mr. Syafiq (right)
Below are the questions that we asked Mr.Syafiq and his response to each one of it:
1. In your opinion, what would be the consequences of plagiarism toward students? And
can you please elaborate them one by one?

In my opinion, there are many consequences of plagiarism toward a student especially us
who are consistently exposed to the technology nowadays. Please do not get me wrong here
guys. I am not saying that I have anything against it but it has to be used wisely otherwise
you will just abuse its noble function which I believe to make it easier for us to gain
knowledge these days. As for that, I will try my best to give you guys with a broad
perspective of plagiarism.
To answer your question, the first consequence would be it would destroy our academic
reputation. As you all know, the consequences of plagiarism have been widely reported in the
world of academia. Ones academic career for instance a lecturer or even a student will be
destroyed in just a blink of an eye if he or she is accused with an act of plagiarism. It is
because the lecturer is the person who is trusted by the community to provide the students
with the pure knowledge. Thus, if one is charged with plagiarism, indeed he or she will lose
his or her credibility as the one who should educate the youngsters. As for the students, he or
she may face a great problem if he or she is caught plagiarizing.


2. Would you mind elaborate that point Mr. Syafiq?
Well, not at all. As I was saying, a student might face a great problem if he is caught
plagiarizing. For instance, same as the example that I have given before, plagiarism may
destroy a students reputation if he is caught doing it by the right person, the lecturer. As
serious as it is sounded, plagiarism can cause a student to be suspended or even worst,
expelled. His academic record will tell us that he has done the only terrible thing in the world
of academia which is plagiarism and it is one of the ethic offenses. Possibly, it will cause the
student to be barred from entering other colleges as most of those education institutions do
take plagiarism very seriously. Moreover, most colleges and universities have academic
integrity committees that put an eye to the students work. Many students are suspended for
their first violation and worst, there are some that have been expelled for their further offense.

Figure B: Ms. Eugina
Below are the questions that we ask Ms. Eugina and her responds to each one of it:
1. In your opinion, what would be the consequences of plagiarism toward students?
And can you please elaborate them one by one?
First of all, thank you for asking, I am so glad that you ask for my opinion regarding this
issue. So from my point of views as a student, plagiarism do brings lots of bad effects
especially for the students future. As we all know, we are not going to be a student for our
whole life, thus, if a student keeps plagiarizing his/her work, he might face a great difficulty
once he/she work later on. It is because his/her degree is not actually theirs, so when they
enter the career world, they might face problems as we have to produce our own effort. What
I try to say is that, if the students do not practice to do work by their own during university

life, for me, it is impossible for them to success in their career later on. On the other hand, if
they being caught red handed plagiarizing other peoples work by their lecturers, their future
might be destroyed. Worst, they might not graduate from that university. This will make their
life harder as nowadays degree is the important thing to apply for a job. Other than that,
believe it or not, if we plagiarize, we might also damage the relationship with friends as well
as with the lecturers.

2. Would you mind elaborate more about your point Miss Eugina?
Of course! But I would like to elaborate my second point just now which is
plagiarizing can damage the relationship between friends and lecturer. Let say, we are
dutiful student, of course we will be upset if we put a great effort but then find out that
our friends who plagiarize cut the corners by achieving mark much higher than us, right?
Whereas if a lecturer finds that we have plagiarized, he/she will develop a sense of
distrust and is more likely to scrutinize our work going forward. So even if we put our
own effort for our next assignment, I am sure that the lecturer will not believe in us
anymore. It is a sad thing indeed we need our lecturers blessing, so my advice is we must
not plagiarize even for once, because if you did, you might all these consequences.

2nd Draft ULAB

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

2nd Draft ULAB

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

1 | Plagiarism Among Education Students in UTM

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen