Academic Dishonesty Among Students: From Cheating to Plagiarism

A survey by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in Indonesia's 2024 Education Integrity Assessment (SPI) reveals that 57.87% of student respondents admitted to cheating, despite knowing it was dishonest. The survey, conducted from August 22 to September 30, 2024, also found that 51.7% of students admitted to having others complete their assignments. Furthermore, 51.57% admitted to cheating or plagiarizing after witnessing their peers do so, and 44.59% admitted to plagiarism, knowing it was dishonest. The KPK also found that 26.05% of students were unable to refuse requests to cheat, and 2.79% chose cheating over studying.

KPK Deputy for Education and Community Participation, Wawan Wardiana, stated that cheating was found in 98% of surveyed campuses and 78% of surveyed schools. Regarding plagiarism, he reported that 43% of respondents indicated its occurrence in universities and 6% in schools.

Responding to the 2024 Education SPI findings, Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Stella Christie, stated that these findings serve as a baseline for evaluating and transforming education for improvement. She outlined four steps: strengthening academic integrity, enhancing human resource capacity, reforming higher education governance, and collaborating with the KPK to develop anti-corruption education.

“We will collaborate with the KPK to develop anti-corruption education through awareness-based and participatory approaches, value-based approaches, compliance-based approaches, and risk management approaches,” she stated, as quoted from the official KPK website.

The KPK involved 36,888 educational institutions from 507 regencies/cities across 38 provinces in Indonesia in the 2024 Education SPI. A total of 449,865 respondents, comprising students, parents, educators, and school principals, participated in the survey.

The 2024 Education SPI employed a dual approach: online via WhatsApp, email blasts, and Computer Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI); and hybrid, using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI).