Beyond Academic Dishonesty: Investigating the Higher Students’ Knowledge and Experience Committing Plagiarism

The issue regarding plagiarism, a kind of academic dishonesty act, continue to be a worldwide concern. This study then examines the higher students’ knowledge and experience of committing plagiarism. This study adopted descriptive quantitative research using the survey method—the collection data stage using an online questionnaire by involving 1.286 students of IAIN Bone as respondents. The findings of this study indicate three categories of students’ knowledge and understanding about plagiarism; 4.1% of students are not familiar with plagiarism terms, 95.43% of students already knew what plagiarism in term is. However, they have partially understood this issue. Plagiarism is regarded as totally taking someone else’s work or copying another’s original ideas without crediting the source; 0.47% of students are familiar with plagiarism terms and understand this issue adequately. Furthermore, there are three categories about their experience committing plagiarism; 4.74% of students did not realize that plagiarism is an improper action, 7.47% of students have a partial understanding about this issue, so they are unsure whether they had ever committed plagiarism or not, while 87.79% students still frequently engaged in plagiarism notwithstanding they realized that plagiarism is academic dishonesty. In conclusion, most students have general knowledge about plagiarism but no in-depth understanding of this issue. Most of them committed plagiarism, even though they know that plagiarism is an academic crime.