INSTITUTE OF SPACE TECHNOLOGY

STRESS OF RESULT AND TIME SHORTAGE LEADS TO PLAGIARISM

TECHNICAL WRITING SURVEY REPORT
Arslan Ahmed; BE-10 Aero; Roll No. 34 Hassaan Bin Jalil; BE-10 Aero; Roll No. 36 Abdul Rehman; BE-10 Aero; Roll No. 16 Arsalan Ahmed; BE-10 Aero; Roll No.19

1/20/2013

Contents
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 4 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................ 4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ............................................................................................. 5 Credit Hours of semester ............................................................................................. 5 Analysis .................................................................................................................... 6 Time chart of an average IST student (per day) ........................................................... 6 Analysis .................................................................................................................... 7 Assessments per Week ............................................................................................... 7 Plagiarism .................................................................................................................... 8 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 9 RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................... 9

ABSTRACT
Plagiarism can generally be defined as the act of copying someone elses work and presenting it as ones own. It makes the work unoriginal and suppresses innovation. Plagiarism, in this researchs context, refers to students copying assignments from different sources or from each other hence defeating the actual learning purpose of the assignment. The purpose of this survey is to observe whether students indulge in plagiarism by choice or as a last resort, keeping in view the (work load)/(time) ratio of the students. We used a questionnaire survey to research our hypothesis. The sample size was 50 (the results of research are restricted to IST students). The data was entered into Microsoft Excel program and this program was used to plot graphs and charts in accord to the data entered. While analyzing the data, the key focus was to understand how much time a student of IST has left on average which can be utilized for assignment purposes. The data showed that 52% of the students accepted that plagiarism is their only resort to submit assignments on time in order to maintain the assignment grade percentage. By analyzing this key fragment of data coupled with data regarding daily time distribution and weekly assessment distribution it was concluded that time shortage is a prime reason for plagiarism. The most recommended solutions to this problem were; reduction of number of assignments (39%), reduction of number of OHTs (30%) and reduction of percentage of assignments (30%).

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this survey is to observe whether students indulge in plagiarism by choice or as a last resort, keeping in view the (work load)/(time) ratio of the students. Plagiarism can generally be defined as the act of copying someone elses work and presenting it as ones own. It is considered a vice and its illegality is of the order of copyright infringement. Plagiarism can be of many different forms, ranging from copying someones idea to copying assignment from classmates, each having its own level of severity. In this report we are concerned with plagiarism in the form of students copying each others assignments and reports to meet the submission deadline. The basis for a student to carry out plagiarism may not always be laziness. The researchers hypothesize that a large number of lecture hours in addition to constant requirement of course revision for quizzes and OHTs render a very small amount of time which is insufficient for completing assignments, and since the assignments are graded, students tend to perform plagiarism to meet the deadline. This reports findings will be very significant in prevention of plagiarism.

METHODOLOGY
We used a questionnaire survey to research our hypothesis. 50 students of IST were randomly selected and were given a short questionnaire (appendix A) which they returned after completion. The data was entered into Microsoft Excel program. This program was used to plot graphs and charts in accord to the data entered. These graphs and charts were then analyzed to attain results and the final conclusion was constructed on the basis of these results.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

In the questionnaire the key focus was to understand how much time a student of IST has left on average which can be utilized for assignment purposes. Then analyze whether it is sufficient for completion of assignments or whether the student will have to use plagiarism and copy the work from some source, in order to submit the assignment on time.

Credit Hours of semester

This was the primary data upon which further research is going to build up. Credit hours are a set amount of hours of assessments that a student has to complete before he/she can be awarded his/her degree. The credit hours of semester gives a rough estimate of how many courses should be taken up by the students and also the amount of lecture hours per week.

Credit Hours of semester

60% 50% 40% Percentage 30% of Students 20% 10% 0% 22 18 16 Credit Hours 14 12

Figure 1

Analysis
The bar chart shows credit hours on the x-axis and the percentage of students who have take up the credit hours on the y-axis. It can be observed that most of the students, 57%, have 18 credit hour courses. Whereas about 28% of students are equally divided in the two extremes of the graph i.e. 14% students have 22 credit hours and 14% of students have 12 credit hours in the current semester. Hence, approximately the average of number of credit hours of IST students is 18 credit hours.

Time chart of an average IST student (per day)

This pie chart will cater to our basic understanding of the daily life cycle of an average IST student. This is important as we can analyze and then quantize the actual degree of time shortage.

Time chart of an average IST student (per day)

Average free time for study 3 Hours

Average Time spent in daily activities, 5 Hours

Average time for sleeping, friends and family, 11 Hours

Average time spent in lectures , 5 Hours

Figure 2

Analysis
This chart is divided into four sections (labeled above). Note that daily activities section refers to the time spent in grooming, meals, transport, domestic chores and personal chores (this was clearly mentioned in the questionnaire, Appendix A). It is clearly shown that an average student has only about 3 hours for studying daily, this includes; preparation of unannounced quizzes, preparation for OHTs, preparation for finals, writing lab reports and doing assignments.

Assessments per Week

To determine whether the average time left for study (previous section) is sufficient to work on all assessments, questions were included in the questionnaire (Appendix A) to observe the average number of assessments per week. The table below shows the time assortment for different types of assessments. We can observe a cluster of assessments every 5 weeks till the end of semester.

Assessment

Assortment (average)

Assignments

3 per week

Quizzes

3 per week

OHTs

3 per 5 weeks

Finals

1 after 16 weeks

Figure 3

Plagiarism
The following chart is the convergence of our research. This is on the basis of the last question of the questionnaire (Appendix A). This basically relates whether the time shortage actually forces a student to plagiarize in assignments in order to submit them on time.

Does shortage of time force you into plagiarizing assignments to meet the deadline?

No
29%

Yes
52%

sometimes
19%

Figure 4

CONCLUSION
After carefully analyzing the data given above it can be concluded that time shortage is a prime reason for plagiarism. As we can see in Figure 4, 52% of the students accept that plagiarism is their only resort in order to maintain the assignment grade percentage, while 19% of the students claim that plagiarism is their last resort when an unreasonable deadline has been set. These responses are synonymous with the time distribution in Figure 2, which shows that the time left for studying is not enough (only 3 hours daily) to cope with all the assessments. Therefore, it can be concluded that the students of IST are forced into plagiarism, unwillingly, due to time shortage and stress of maintaining the assignment grade percentage.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The solution is not to impose stricter mechanisms to detect plagiarism but to alleviate the stress of time shortage or GPA by following some of the suggestions presented by the students.

Recommendations
40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Reduce number of assignments Reduce percentage of assignment in final grade Reduce the number of OHTs

Figure 5