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ASSESSMENT COVER SHEET

Student Name: Adli Sudjatmiko | Agreed mark | Late penalty | Final mark | Programme Title: MSc Management | Unit Title: Developing Professional Practice | Registration Number: 12502138 | Assessment Title/Number: | Year/Stage: | Due Date: 14/10/2013 | Unit Leader/Dissertation Supervisor/Subject Tutor: | Declaration:I/We declare that this assignment is all my/our own work, that it has not been copied from elsewhere and that any extracts from books, papers or other sources have been properly acknowledged as references or quotations. In addition I/we agree that this assignment may be subject to electronic analysis for the detection of collusion, plagiarism and other forms of unfair advantage. Please tick the box to confirm acceptance of the above declaration. Date: 14/10/2013 |

SUMMARY

The article by Gou (2011) discussed an issue about student plagiarism in accounting education aspect in the UK. The article attempted to indicate the factors of plagiarism, develop and examine the factors by surveying the accounting student behaviour towards plagiarism, and give recommendation to the accounting educators to reduce the act of plagiarism. The article mentioned that in the past decade, this plagiarism issue has become a primary concern in the UK education sector, since education plagiarism is in relation to further business and professional ethics. The article used experts’ researches in order to identify the factors that influence the accounting student starting plagiarise and suggested there are nine major factors that lead to plagiarism behaviour; which are moral capability, awareness of plagiarism, academic integration, pressures, accounting education, new technology, institutional support, cultural influences, and demographic variables.

The article practiced questionnaire and statistical analysis by using structural equation modelling (SEM) with the aim of a better understanding of the correlation between the accounting students, the plagiarism factors, and the students’ attitude towards plagiarism. The research were participated by 381 accounting students in the UK, as the results captured an accurate and sufficient evidences regarding plagiarism activity. Based on the research, the article were able to arise with six recommendations for accounting educators to reduce the incidence of plagiarism; which are understand cultural influences, include ethics-related modules, integrate students into their academic life, reconsider the impact of new technology on plagiarism, the awareness of plagiarism is positively related, and reconsider to substitute the written assignment. Last but not least, the article tended to continue it research in the future as the author found a several possibility of different approaches that can be taken towards the plagiarism factors.

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CRITIQUE

First of all, the purpose of the article is to define the factors of plagiarism and to give recommendation for educators with the aim of preventing plagiarism in academic level. The article described plagiarism as an act of stealing words or information from someone else, and the idea is beyond general knowledge. Isaacs (2011) stated that plagiarism is highly unethical and unacceptable, the consequences for plagiarism action could be zero mark or even dismissal for severe cases, therefore, it is important to acknowledge the source as transparency is the key. The article claimed that in the past decade, plagiarism becomes a major issue in the UK, and plagiarism in the education has significant impact to the future business and professional activity. Luke and Kearins (2012) reported that corporate scandals and frauds, business’ financial loss and misguidance in leadership ethics are often reflect to some unethical issues of previous academic level, which plagiarism in one of them.

The article suggested new technology (internet, search engine and other technology advancement), as crucial factor, has made it easy for student to find or discover and save a large amount of sources so as to help them to do the assignments or course works. However, the function of “copy and paste” has increased the opportunity of plagiarism. Not surprisingly, the discussion about advance technology lead to plagiarism is on the rise, according to Sterngold (2004), the plagiarism that occurred from technology or sometimes called “digital plagiarism” is because the digital revolution, the emerge of search engines, online journals, and other electronic sources. A survey by Sterngold (2004) also reported that 41% of the students at Rutgers University said they engaged the “copy and paste” plagiarism from the online sources.

On the other hand, today, in preventing plagiarism, technology advancement has critical impact on it, a significant number declined from plagiarism incidence rate in the university by the introduction of anti-plagiarism software such as “CrossCheck” and “Turnitin” in the university (Vega et al., 2013). Moreover, pressure is another factor of plagiarism that the article focused on and the result of the analysis also shown the pressure of fear to fail and time or deadline pressure lead to plagiarism, and Koh et al. (2011) supported this argument by adding the pressure in the form of the weight of course work or assignment is motivates the student to plagiarize.

Furthermore, after surveying 136 accounting students in the US, Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2007) found that the moral reasoning and unethical behaviour are highly related to plagiarism, and there are only few institutions that have focused on plagiarism as a wrong behaviour. So, this survey by Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2007), indicates that the recommendation from Guo’s article (2011) to include the ethic-related module in the university is suitable and appropriate, since the students were not take the act of plagiarism seriously and do not consider it as cheating behaviour.

In spite of all that, Guo (2011) used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) as his methodology in the analysis, and there are limitations in SEM itself. In SEM, the measurement does not justify the size or scale of each variable’s contribution that makes to the overall result, rather, all variables are assumed to have same contribution to the main question (Valuzzi et al., 2003). In SEM’s evaluation, the variable’s differences sometimes appeared and do not related to complex design of the survey, and the results are likely unobserved the variable’s differences (Lei and Wu, 2007). As the results from Guo’s analysis (2011), accounting as main subject in his analysis is fail to relate to plagiarism, no all factors are concluded in the results, and although new technology is mentioned as a factor and recommendation, during the evaluation, there are no psychometric support found in data analysis, which forced new technology to be removed from the final model.

Finally, in the current situation, the recommendations that the article implied might not as effective as it was before. Hamlin et al. (2013) stated that today, around 50% students are still engage plagiarism action, and creating strict policies in the institution or university toward plagiarism are appeared to more effective rather than understanding the students’ environment and applying new modules, which also time consuming. Hamlin et al. (2013) described that even if the recommendations above are applied, dishonesty will remain problem in the university, however, the research by Hamlin et al. (2013) showed that strict intuitional policy on cheating and plagiarism is strongly change the students’ perspective toward plagiarism, where this method are successfully reduced the plagiarism incidence rate in four major universities in the US. Extreme sanctions to an offending student are considered as strict institutional policy, failing the students from the entire course or expelling them from the university, for example (Bayard and Mehlman, 2013).

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REFERENCE

* Abdolmohammadi, M. J. and Baker, C. R. (2007) “The Relationship between Moral Reasoning and Plagiarism in Accounting Courses: A Replication Study.” ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION, vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 45–55 * Bayard, P. and Mehlman, J. (2013) “Anticipatory Plagiarism.” New Literary History, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 231-250 * Gou, X. (2011) “Understanding student plagiarism: an empirical study in Accounting Education.” Accounting Education: an International Journal, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 17-37 * Hamlin, A., Barczyk, C., Powell, G. and Frost, J. (2013) “A comparison of university efforts to contain academic dishonesty.” Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 35-45 * Isaacs, D. (2011) “Plagiarism is not OK.” Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 159 * Koh, H. P., Schully, G. and Woodliff, D. R. (2011) “The impact of cumulative pressure on accounting students’ propensity to commit plagiarism: an experimental approach.” Accounting & Finance, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 985-1005 * Lei, P. W. and Wu, Q. (2007) “Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling: Issues and Practical Considerations.” Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, vol. 4, no.1, pp. 33-43 * Luke, B. and Kearins, K. (2012) “Attribution of words versus attribution of responsibilities: Academic plagiarism and universities practice.” Organization, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 881-889 * Sterngold, A. (2004) “CONFRONTING PLAGIARISM.” CHANGE, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 16-21 * Valuzzi, J. L., Larson, S. L. and Miller, G. E. (2003) “Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice.” Joint Statistical Meetings, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 4345-4352 * Vega, F. S., Tello, E. V., Gomez, M. M., Pineda, L. V. and Rosso, P. (2013) “Determining and characterizing the reused text for plagiarism detection.” Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 1804-1813