Students' Perception Towards the Plagiarism : A Study in Kota Kinabalu (Sabah) Polythechnic / Khairul Arifin Abdullah

Students aim to gain academic qualifications and expected to express appropriate levels of achievement and ability through coursework and examinations. Each higher learning institutions expect and believe that students will work hard and use their own intellectual capabilities to produce the original work to earn better grade for their assignment and exam mark. The advanced technology that we have today such as Information Communication Technology is leading our nation to become more dynamic and innovative in term of living aspects. Generally, majority of students want to graduate on time and desire to gain a good result or grade in their assignment either examination but students assumed need not necessary for them to give a full effort to make all the assessment and work by themselves. It encourages students to become plagiaries in their academic papers whether from printed material or internet sources. This is because the assignments that are given by the lecturers have been prepared in a book or on the internet. Existing works of previous student can also be use if it seems suitable with the questions that are provided. On the other hand, if the subject is quite complex to be understand and does not catch the students' attention, it could be considered lucky. Thus, the old time method of 'copy and paste' the ideas or work of other people would be their favourite way of survival, but of course with a little bit of modification applied to be approved as their own work