CUTTING THE PREVALENCE OF PLAGIARISM IN THE DIGITAL ERA: STUDENT TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON PLAGIARISM IN INDONESIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

It seems that plagiarism has not been seen as misconduct in higher education in some developing countries including in Indonesia which might be affected by cultural, economic, and technological issues. The research aimed at exploring the perceptions of Indonesian student teachers towards plagiarism in four higher education institutions. The research was undertaken as a mixed-method research. Questionnaire and face to face interviews were the instruments to collect data. A paper-based questionnaire was administered to 534 student teachers while face to face interviews were conducted with twenty voluntary participants. The data from the questionnaire were analyzed and presented in the form of percentages, frequencies, and standard deviation while interview data were first analyzed by transcribing the audiotaped interviews into texts, which were then read line-by-line to find and list every significant statement relevant to knowledge of plagiarism definition, research ethic, and research misconduct types, attitudes towards plagiarism, practicing of plagiarism, and reasons of plagiarism among twenty participants. Results showed that most student teachers knew the definition of plagiarism, but they did not know the types of research misconduct. They considered plagiarism as an act of stealing but being unable to avoid in for their study. They tended to do plagiarism because they wanted to save time and they considered about the pressure of their study. Based on the findings of this study, it is important that participants should be required to have more education on plagiarism and its effects and consequences on the ethics of research and education. More strict policies should be implemented to evaluate and supervise plagiarism emerged in Indonesian higher education institutions for undergraduate programs.