Plagiarism And Its Effect On The Academic Assessment System

Introduction In the age of advance technology and internet, plagiarism has become an increasingly complex issue. Petress (2003) argues that such phenomenon distorts the rewarding sense of hard work, destroys ethical value of honesty and undermines the academic assessment systems. Moreover, (Gullifer Tyson, 2010) believe that plagiarism denies students’ chances to develop essential academic skills and consequently causes difficulty to progress their degree. As a result, many western and Australian universities have established systems to detect and punish plagiarism-related activities. However, (Devlin Gray, 2007) point out that those systems are unreliable because they are based on untested assumptions that such behaviour is†¦show more content†¦However, early research tends to focus only on individual motives and neglect the impact of social, cultural and physical environment on students’ behaviours. For example, peer attitude towards cheatings, peer pressure or cultural acceptance of plagiarism can significantly influence idiosyncratic perceptions and actions. Cultural reasons are also increasingly important in the age of internalisation in education with abundance of overseas students in western countries. As pointed out in (Guo, 2011), (Alam, 2004), (Ashworth et al., 2003) and (Johnson Clerehan, 2005), many international students come from East Asia where copying work with little or no reference is the norm or whe re education system focus on other assessment criteria than written assignments. Therefore, it is expected that they are unacquainted with referencing and writing skills. A later study (Park, 2003) successfully discusses social and cultural factors by drawing conclusion from previous literature to UK higher education context. Some of his notable findings are â€Å"lack of apprehension about referencing requirement†, â€Å"poor time management†, â€Å"peer tolerance towards plagiarism†, â€Å"temptation to plagiarise due to abundant digitalised information†, â€Å"negative attitudes towards teachers† and â€Å"low risk of getting caught†. Nevertheless, the