The 4PA of Plagiarism: Psycho-Academic Profile of Plagiarists

Plagiarism is considered to be a serious transgression in the academic world. Due to the perception that plagiarism is rampant among both students and professors, the Indonesian government has established policies to prevent plagiarism in academia. Varieties of sanctions, ranging from score reduction to the revocation of granted academic titles have been applied to those who are caught committing this serious academic offense. However, the severity of the sanctions seems unable to put an end to plagiarism. Because severe sanctions seem unable to eradicate or even alleviate plagiarism, it might be assumed that the tendency towards plagiarism is a personal trait. Regardless of the presence or absence of opportunities and the severity of the potential sanctions, some individuals seem to be prone to plagiarism. In this study, five variables were used as predictors of plagiarism: procrastination, performance, personality, perfectionism, and achievement motivation. They were chosen to represent personal inclination, ability, and value, which separately have been reported to be correlated with plagiarism (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010). This study tries to combine those variables and has named it the 4PA of plagiarism. 
 
This study used a sample of 362 undergraduate psychology students. The data were collected during the students' final exam, using seven scales. Plagiarism was measured using the Academic Practices Survey (APS) (Roig & DeTommaso, 1995) and the Personal Experiences with Plagiarism Scale (PEPS) (Bouman, 2009). Procrastination was measured using the Aitken Procrastination Inventory (API) (Aitken, 1982) and the Procrastination Assessment Scale – Student (PASS) (Solomon & Rothblum, 1984). Academic score performance was taken from the faculty's academic archives (subjects' GPAs and scores in Introduction to Psychology). Personality was measured using the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) (http://ipip.ori.org/). Perfectionism was measured using the Almost Perfect Scale (APS-SO) (Slaney, Rice, Mobley, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001). Achievement motivation was measured using the Achievement Motivation Inventory (AMI) (Schuler, Thornton, Frintrup, & Mueller-Hanson, 2004). 
 
Both plagiarism scales (APS and PEPS) produced similar results (r=.419). Four of the five predictors have significant correlations with plagiarism. The highest correlations were found between plagiarism and the frequency of procrastination/PASS (rAPS & rPEPS =.270 = .202) and habitual procrastination/API (rAPS = .217 & rPEPS =.173). Plagiarists tend to have low conscientiousness (IPIP; rAPS = -.212 & rPEPS = -.178). A small but significant correlation was found between plagiarism and perfectionism (APS-SO; rAPS = -.143& rPEPS =-.124). Plagiarists tend to have low achievement motivation (AMI; rAPS = -.219 & rPEPS =-.183). Plagiarism is not significantly correlated with academic achievement. The contribution of the four predictor variables was rooted in academic procrastination. The dynamics of these variables for predicting plagiarism are discussed.


Introduction
Since August 2010, the Ministery of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia issued a regulation related to the prevention and mitigation of plagiarism in higher education.This regulation was issued due to the widespread plagiarism in the academic world.The violators came from diverse backgrounds, ranging from undergraduate students to professors (Jawa Pos National Network/JPNN, 2011; Utomo, 2010;Warastri & Kusumaputra, 2011).Repeated violations in great numbers and severity has enforced the government to crack down any form of plagiarism, either systematically or randomly, regardless of deliberate or accidental plagiarism.The Indonesian government insists that any form of plagiarism is a serious offense which even can be classified as illegal actions.
Threats of sanctions, ranging from a reprimand, written warning, dishonorable discharge, even until revocation of academic degrees, had been given to address this academic violations.Unfortunately, despite the threat of sanctions which has been given, the offenses are still flourishing.Whether caused by despair, hoping to be able to cheat without getting caught, or willingness to risk the threatened sanctions, some of the academic community seem unable to stop conducting plagiarism.
Even if the losses had been realized, some parties still seem to plagiarise in a variety of different levels at different times.It is sometimes even equated with addictive behaviors, such as cigarette smoking, food, sex, and gambling (Widdicombe,2012).Plagiarism researchers observed some specific characteristics that might become potential indicators of plagiarism, such as Asian ethnicity (Hayes & Inrona, 2005), in particular China (Li & Xiong, 1996).The established habit of copying or memorizing subject matters makes plagiarism ban received much resistance and questioning.Students in Asia, who has long believed that accuracy of the answers are determined by the similarity with a reference book or source, are in confusion when the similarity is no longer respected but even despised and penalized (Introna & Hayes, 2007).
Academic dishonesty in form of plagiarism are also often found on the works (papers) of international students or foreign students who use English as a second language (Sowden, 2005).In this case, the lack of English language skills became one of the reasons for plagiarism.This happens because of difficulty in understanding and representing ideas in a foreign language (second language), such as in English.The low expectancy of legally succeeding in the task (which is considered important) is increasing the likelihood of doing the work illegally (such as by plagiarising).McCabe, Trevino, and Butterfield (2001) suggested that researches on academic cheating have already studied individual and situational factors which triggered misconduct behavior.In the area of individual factors, they found that plagiarists were often characterized as male students who have poor academic performance and low work ethic.The situational factors, faculty predisposition and reactions, such as regulations, sanction threats, and codes of honor were reported as influential features in affecting students academic integrity.
Academic achievement deserve special attention.Numerous studies reported negative correlations between academic achievement and academic fraud, especially those based on self-reports, which should be carefully interpreted.This negative correlation can have many meanings.Nowell and Laufer (1997) suggested another reason for the negative correlation between plagiarism and academic achievement.They believed that students with poor performance does not have much at stake when cheating.Beside, nearly expelled students might think, that though they were in risk of getting caught, the chance of success is still greater by cheating than when they did the work honestly.
Nowell and Laufer' suggestion looks very reasonable.For students with bad or mediocre academic achievement, being caught while cheating only leads to a score reduction or even perhaps dismissal.Those threats are not much different from the results which they will receive when doing it honestly.If so, plagiarism can even be seen as a more clever choice and even more promising.In the plagiarists' point of view, by being honest, the obtained scores would be absolutely bad.On the other hand, when they plagiarise or cheating, their score is likely to be much better, although there is a risk of being caught.
When faced with two choices which are equally risky, then the decision of choosing activities that are still promising some opportunities might be actualy better or even the brightest choice that they could take.Therefore, it is not surprising if they choose to commit fraud or plagiarism.This is further reinforced by the many success stories of fellows, who share their successful experiences while cheating, which is often told with a sense of pride and tinged with a feeling of joy.The situation became even worse when the experience of being caught was even interpreted as just being unlucky.These conditions make the utility of the fraudulent behavior always being considered higher than honest behavior (Steel, 2007;Steel & König, 2006).
Another argument of the negative correlation between plagiarism and academic achievement is, in a self report study, high academic achievers are more embarrassed to admit any cheating they have done (McCabe & Trevino, 2002).Allegations that his/her works are just results of academic fraud is certainly fearful threats for any students.Nowell and Laufer (1997) and Pritchett (2010) suggested that higher threats of losing all of the honor and any other privileges will make high achiever students think and rethinks again before committing and even admitting any fraud they have done.
In the field of scientific study of behavior, no one would argue that plagiarism is a negative or even destructive pattern of behavior.Since 1995, plagiarism was already correlated with other negative constructs, one of them is procrastination (Roig & DeTomasso, 1995).They found significantly higher scores of plagiarism on high procrastinators than low procrastinator students.From their data of 115 college undergraduate students, they suggested that procrastination might be considered as one of the mediator of academic dishonesty.
Despite the availability of opportunities to plagiarise and the severity of sanctions, some researchers belief that plagiarism is also related with some personal predispositions (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010).They reported certain constructs as highly influential predictors of plagiarism or academic cheating as a more general construct, which they named as dark triad (psychopathy, machiavellianism, and narcissism).Their study on 228 undergraduate students from University of British Columbia revealed that self-reported cheating were correlated significantly with psychopathy (r= .58),machiavellianism (r= .39),and narcissism (r= .20).They also reported statistically significant negative correlations between self-reported cheating with two personality factors, agreeableness (r=-0.23)and conscientiousness(r=-0.28).
On the other hand, Wowra (2005) offered different yet interesting point of view.He suggested that plagiarism's researchers should not only focusing their effort to learn about why someone plagiarise, but also asking questions about what would plagiarist do in the future.Will someone who was being caught for doing plagiarism would reduce their inclination to plagiarise or would they even try to be a better and smarter plagiarist.Wowra's literature review suggested that plagiarism was also reported as predictor of some erratic behaviors, like bending or breaking workplace regulations, betraying marriage relationship, and some other misconduct behaviors.He even believed that people who cheated during their educational life tend to keep cheating and more vulnerable to conduct unethical behavior in order to pursuit their goals.
Two other related constructs which will also be the focus of this research are perfectionism and achievement motivation.Although known as different constructs, these two variables are highly related one another and share similar correlation pattern with academic cheating and plagiarism.Someone with very high perfectionism and achievement motivation would likely intolerate any error/fault/failure in their work, regardless how small they are.This dedication toward perfection is susceptible to misconduct behaviors.When the individual (such as ability and energy) and situational (time, facilities, and other resources) factors are not ready/available, yet the ambition of success is very high, the person would need so much energy to maintain his/her integrity (McCabe & Trevino, 2002).McCabe and Trevino (1993) also reminded that in a highly competitive yet dishonest academic culture, it is not uncommon that non-cheaters eventually found that cheating is acceptable.When the environtment pressures were arising and the non-cheater also realized that their peer can get good grade by doing "bad", the temptation to cheat could be very strong.Bower's fenomenal work at the sixties (cited from McCabe & Trevino, 2002), suggested that peer influence is probably one of the "most powerful" predictor of students' cheating.
In this study, there are five variables which was used as predictors of plagiarism: procrastination, performance, personality, perfectionism, and achievement motivation.To keep it simple, those variables will be named 4PA, according to the first letter of each variable.
In order to provide systematic explanation and discussion, 4PA variables were framed using the framework of Temporal Motivation Theory (TMT; Steel & König, 2006;Steel, 2007).This framework proposed that motivation to conduct any activities was rooted in four components: expectancy, value, impulsivity, and time-delay.People tend to prioritize any activity which was associated with high expectancy and value yet low impulsivity and timedelay.
In this theoretical framework, procrastination and personality (the conscientiousness aspect), were classified as impulsivity component (inclination to react impulsively and delay of gratification).Performance in academic setting was classified as expectancy (related with ability to handle task competently).Perfectionism was classified as expectancy and value (related with ability and appreciation toward the task).Achievement motivation was classified as value (related with task's importance).

Method
Participants of this study were 362 undergraduate psychology students.Data collection were held during final exam and there is no obligation to become participant.The request of becoming participant was offered in the end of the exam to each student.Any student who finished the questionnaire was receiving brief guideline about prevention and eradication of plagiarism in academic setting.Although offered to the whole population, not every student participated in this study.The response rate is about 70%.

Results
Self reports on plagiarism (APS and PEPS) produce positive and significant correlations (r= .419; Table 1).Between the APS sub-scales, the biggest correlation was found between PEPS score and Academic Dishonesty (r=.341) , followed by the other APS sub-scales, namely the partial plagiarism (r= .333)and the full plagiarism (r= .272).These findings suggest that the scales of APS and PEPs will produce more similar results when correlation between the scores were based on total score rather than using factor scores.However, the correlation between APS scores and several other variables produce higher scores when using academic dishonesty's sub-scale score.Only four of the five predictors of plagiarism produced statistically significant correlations with plagiarism.Both procrastination scales produce positive and significant correlations with plagiarism.Frequency of procrastination which was measured by PASS produced higher correlation with APS (rAPS= .270 ) than with PEPS (rPEPS= .202).Similar findings were reported from habitual procrastination, which was measured with API (rAPS= .217 & rPEPS= .173).
High similarities between conscientiousness (IPIP-Concientiousness) and procrastination (rPASS=-0.575;rAPI=-0.676)were reflected in the similarities of the correlational pattern between conscientiousness (IPIP) and plagiarism (rAPS = -0.212& rC-PEPS = -0.178).These results were parallel with the correlation pattern of plagiarism and the procrastination scales, especially API.However, contrary to the procrastination scores, plagiarism were negatively correlated with conscientiousness.
Negative correlation were also found between perfectionism and plagiarism (APS; rAPS =-0.143; rPEPS =-0.124).This finding was originally not expected.At the outset, perfectionism was expected to correlate positively with plagiarism.However, in this study the correlation is negative.This difference was attributed to adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism.Adaptive perfectionist tends to avoid academic misconduct.However, there is no significant correlation on the maladaptive perfectionist.
One last significant correlation was found between plagiarism and achievement motivation.Individuals with high plagiarism scores tend to have low achievement motivation scores (AMI; rAPS =-0.219 & rPEPS =-0.183).Similar with perfectionism, although expected to have positive correlation, achievement motivation were negatively correlated with plagiarism.
The last predictor of plagiarism, academic achievement, was not able to produce a significant correlation.Although many studies suggested negative a correlation between plagiarism and academic achievement, results in this study showed no correlation between those two variables.Low correlations were found for both GPA and introductory to psychology's scores.Students with high and low academic scores were equally vulnerable to plagiarism.

Discussion
Procrastination was the best predictor of plargiarism, among the other four variables.Further investigation was conducted to recognize the best items which can be used as predictors of plagiarism.The investigation was conducted twice, each for APS and PEPS, respectively.
For the APS, seven items were reported as the best predictors, which produced positive and significant multiple correlation coefficient (r= .419).From those items, three were from AMI scale (AMI_18, AMI_27, & AMI_28), two were from PASS scale (PASS1_A5 & PASS1_B3, one was from IPIP (IPIP_38) and API (API_18).For PEPS, five items were reported as best predictors (r= .301).For those five items, one item came from API scale (API_15) and two item came from AMI (AMI_1 & AMI_11) and PASS (PASS1_A5 & PASS1_A6).
One item from PASS scale ("To what degree do you procrastinate on attendance task: meeting with your advisor, making an appointment with a professor, etc") seems to be the best item to predict academic cheating (r= .281)and plagiarism (r=.180).Overall, items from the procrastination scales, whether PASS (four items) or API (two items), seems to be the finest alternatives in predicting academic misconduct.It seems, intense and habitual procrastination have created more destructive results than initially imagined.
The other variables which seemed to be the second best predictors were achievement motivation (AMI).There are five items from this scale which can be used as predictors of academic dishonesty and plagiarism.Themes of those items are fear of failure and dedication toward the task.Fear of failure was an increasing tendency to conduct academic cheating.On the other hand, dedication to the task was reducing the inclination to plagiarise.When combined together, the findings suggested that plagiarism and academic misconduct would be higher when a person is a procrastinator with low achievement motivation.

Conclusion
Considering plagiarism's high correlation to some constructs, such as procratination and academic achievement, the nature of plagiarism is slowly but surely revealed.This study reveals a cross-cultural perspective on this phenomenal issue.Some findings were against previous studies.Although interesting, this contribution should not be taken for granted.As McCabe, Trevino, and Butterfield (2001) said, many studies shared similar limitations that is, the samples were taken from one single location.These limitations should remind us from claiming inappropriate generalization.
One final statement was taken from Klein's (2011) warning about the threat of plagiarism.Though many plagiarists were already considering the damaging effect of their conduct, not many of them were aware of the collateral damages of plagiarism, such as spoiling their alma mater's credibility and reputation.Plagiarism is a part of academic misconduct which has many very serious and dangerous effects.Habitual plagiarism were reported to be followed by many inappropriate behaviors.Realizing the catasthrophic effects of academic dishonesty, we should strive endlessly to pursue and innovate means to fight against appealing programs or softwares offering undetected plagiarizing.Building a culture of high standard in academic integrity should be our endless aim.

Table 1
The score of .419 is PEPS and APS total score's correlation.The other APS scores are using the academic dishonesty sub-scale's score.Correlation between academic dishonesty and PEPS is r= 341 (p.000)