Attitude and Practices of Senior High School Students Towards Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the misrepresentation of another's ideas or words as one's own, without proper acknowledgment of the source. The main objective of this study is to determine the attitude and practices of students towards plagiarism in one institution in Pangasinan. It is an experimental study that investigates the attitude and practices of the students once they found out that their instructor runs their submitted paper to a plagiarism detection software. The sources of the data are the 44 Senior High School student from one institution in Pangasinan, where students we’re asked to submit an essay paper in a Science Subject. A 1500 word essay which is divided into three questions was given to the student as an assignment. Submission of the assigned work was made thru Google Classroom for easy organization. Based on the result of the study, based on the first submission where students are unaware of plagiarism testing, 40.9% of the total students have 75 to 100 percent matching. The study shows a positive result in avoiding plagiarism for the second submission due to the feedback provided by Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software. It is recommended that the institution should be serious about maintaining academic integrity by subscribing to the tools that help the education system away from plagiarism.