Students' Knowledge of Plagiarism: Basis for SPUP Honor Code Framework

Bryan B Echanique

doi:10.13189/ujer.2020.080931

Abstract

The prevalence of plagiarism among college students has posed challenges to academic integrity in higher education institutions (HEIs) all over the world. Through mixed methods, this study determined students' level of knowledge of plagiarism along five areas to provide baseline data as basis for an intervention that would promote intellectual honesty. Participants consisted of 283 randomly selected undergraduate students. A validated survey questionnaire was used to gather the data, which were treated using descriptive-inferential statistics and thematic analysis. Results revealed that the participants had very high level of knowledge in terms of the basic concepts about plagiarism, the ways of detecting this form of intellectual theft, and the possible adverse consequences when one was caught plagiarizing. The students, however, had low level of knowledge of the subject in terms of its more technical aspects such as its different forms as well as accurate citation and documentation of sources. Moreover, sex had a significant main effect on students' knowledge of plagiarism in terms of its harmful consequences while department exerted a significant main effect along harmful consequences including citation and documentation. Furthermore, sex and type of senior high school (SHS) graduated from had a significant interaction effect along ways of detecting plagiarism and consequences of intellectual theft. Considering the findings, the researcher forwarded the establishment of the SPUP Honor Code that would provide the necessary structure for managing academic dishonesty especially plagiarism through educative, corrective, and restorative mechanisms towards promoting the principles and values of academic integrity.

Highlights

Plagiarism, a grave academic misconduct that is “both poor scholarship and a breach of academic integrity”[1], is the act of using the words or ideas of others as one’s own without properly acknowledging the source[2]
They, scored low in terms of the different forms. This suggests that the students could not identify well a specific form of plagiarism and distinguish it from the other forms, validating the report that students have insufficient awareness of what qualifies as plagiarism[9,25] which could expose them to undesirable consequences[26]
The researcher concludes that undergraduate students have very high level of knowledge in terms of the basic concepts about plagiarism, the ways of detecting this form of intellectual theft, and the possible adverse consequences when one was caught plagiarizing

Summary

Introduction

Plagiarism, a grave academic misconduct that is “both poor scholarship and a breach of academic integrity”[1], is the act of using the words or ideas of others as one’s own without properly acknowledging the source[2]. Its widespread is largely attributed to the use of the internet[4,5,9,12] and it is one of the key topics of debates in the modern scientific world[3,4,13]. This form of academic dishonesty requires sustained attention and vigilance if institutions of learning have to uphold their raison d’être. This research is an attempt at reinvigorating the principles of ethical scholarship in an age when tremendous information explosion takes place and those in the academe have to model responsible use of information. It sought to expand the body of literature and research on the subject by exploring variables that have never been considered but are seen to be potential determinants of intellectual dishonesty

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion