STUDENTS’ WRITING PRACTICES AND ASSESSMENT PRESSURES: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC EXAMINATION OF ACADEMIC PLAGIARISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

Academic plagiarism is commonly viewed as an ethical issue in higher education; however, research shows it is also influenced by social, linguistic, and institutional factors. This quantitative study investigates how students’ writing practices and assessment pressure contribute to plagiarism, focusing on sociolinguistic aspects such as linguistic insecurity, unfamiliarity with academic discourse, and peer normalization. Data were collected through a Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS (descriptive statistics, reliability, correlation, and regression). The findings indicate that writing difficulties and assessment pressure significantly increase plagiarism tendency, while academic literacy awareness reduces it. The study recommends process-based assessment and explicit academic writing instruction to minimize plagiarism through a learning-oriented approach.