Understanding Perceptions of Undergraduate Students on Academic Plagiarism

Abstract

Plagiarism, as a type of academic misconduct, is a significant issue in higher education institutions and is described as the spreading of moral panic in academics. Prompted by concerns with the frequency of plagiarism, this investigation examined undergraduate students' perceptions of academic misconduct, forms of plagiarism, and the underlying causes of plagiarism among first- and second-year biology and chemistry majors at the University of Guyana, Turkeyen campus in 2018. The paper also presents students’ recommendations on how to best address the issue in the program. Although the findings of this study cannot be generalised, it was found that more than 90% of students who participated were acquainted with the interpretation of the terms academic misconduct and plagiarism but still plagiarized. Interestingly, the most prevalent form of plagiarism was found to be substituting the author's words with synonyms while maintaining the overall organization and meaning of the original work, and the most common cause of plagiarism was determined to be heavy assessment workload. According to this survey, students favoured penalties over grade loss when it came to avoiding plagiarism. Ultimately, the results reveal how conscious students are of academic integrity and strategies that could lower the quantity of plagiarism cases at the institution.