An increase cases of plagiarism has been observed among higher education students as access to information is becoming easier and faster online. This study aimed to explore plagiarism practice among higher education students and factors that might contribute towards the practice. The study employed a qualitative case study research design and involved five undergraduate students from a few private and public higher learning institutions. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The study found that only a small number of students do not aware of plagiarism issue in higher learning while most students are aware of plagiarism issue with some of them have sufficient knowledge on various forms of plagiarism practiced in higher learning. The study discovered that students’ attitude and inefficient time management are major factors that contribute toward the plagiarism practice. The students continued to engage in plagiarism because they can get away with the practice as students did not receive any reminder, warning or penalty from lecturers upon their unethical conducts. The study suggested that there is a need for higher education institutions to assist students to master academic writing skills across courses such as the ability to think critically and independently in writing, and the ability to summarise, synthesise and paraphrase ideas, and cite sources in writing. The study also recommended for any development of students’ learning assessment to incorporate elements of academic writing skills across courses.
Caulfield, J. (2019). “How to Do Thematic Analysis.” Scientific Research Publishing. Retrieved February 15, 2023 (https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/thematic-analysis/).
Cohen, D., and Crabtree, B. (2006). “Qualitative Research Guidelines Project.” Agricultural Sciences. Retrieved February 3, 2023 (http://www.qualres.org/HomeEval-3664.html ).
Hassan, R., Ahmad, T. B. T. (2018). “Internet Plagiarism among Form Four Chemistry Students of a Selected Malaysian Secondary School: Exploring Its Prevalence, Correlates and Gender Differences.” IIUM Journal of Educational Studies 5(2):54–72.
Heale, R., and Twycross, A. (2018). “What Is a Case Study?” Evidence-Based Nursing 21(1):7–8. doi: 10.1136/eb-2017-102845.
Horbach, S. P. J. M. (Serge., and W. (Willem) Halffman. (2019). “The Extent and Causes of Academic Text Recycling or ‘Self-Plagiarism.’” Research Policy 48(2):492–502. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2017.09.004.
Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation.
Pastor, J. C. (2018). “Plagio En Las Publicaciones.” Archivos de La Sociedad Española de Oftalmologia 93(12):571–72. doi: 10.1016/j.oftal.2018.08.009.
Pizarro, V., Gaspar, and Juan, D. V. (2017). “Docode 5: Building a Real-World Plagiarism Detection System.” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 64(September):261–71. doi: 10.1016/j.engappai.2017.06.001.
Sakamoto, D., and Kazuhiko, T. (2019). “A Detection Method for Plagiarism Reports of Students.” Procedia Computer Science 159:1329–38. doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2019.09.303.
Singh, Manjet Kaur Mehar, and Malini Ganapathy. 2018. “Understanding Plagiarism from the Lens of First Year Tertiary Level Students.” Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 26(T):159–77.
Uzun, A. M., and Kilis, S. (2020). “Investigating Antecedents of Plagiarism Using Extended Theory of Planned Behavior.” Computers and Education 144(January):1–5. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103700.
