INFLUENCE OF PLAGIARISM CHECKER ON THE ACADEMIC WORK OF GRADE 12 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN BESTLINK COLLEGE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Abstract

Plagiarism checkers are widely used tools that can assess various types of academic work to determine whether content has been copied from external sources. These applications help ensure academic integrity by identifying similarities in students’ submissions. In a grounded theory study, Parvin Abassi (2020) explored the underlying causes of plagiarism across five dimensions: background conditions, causal conditions, approaches, intervening conditions, and outcomes. The study sheds light on students' perceptions of plagiarism, particularly its impact on written outputs, critical thinking, and originality, as well as the challenges they encounter when using plagiarism detection tools. This study adopted an exploratory quantitative research design to assess the impact of plagiarism checkers on the academic work of Grade 12 Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) students. A total of 200 respondents were selected through a cluster sampling technique and participated by completing a structured survey questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools to identify patterns and trends in students' experiences and perceptions. The findings indicate that respondents rated the influence of plagiarism checkers on academic work with weighted mean scores of 3.50 for written output, 3.45 for critical thinking, and 3.51 for originality. The overall weighted mean of 3.51 reflects a strong agreement regarding the positive impact of plagiarism checkers. Furthermore, as shown in Table 5, 131 respondents (22.29%) reported that limited data coverage is the most frequently encountered issue when using these tools. Improvements to plagiarism checkers should focus on expanding their vocabulary range, enhancing grammatical accuracy, and broadening their database coverage. Additionally, their functionality must be upgraded to improve text scanning, plagiarism detection accuracy, and error prevention. It is also crucial to update the system to ensure efficient and reliable performance. The researchers further recommend implementing a structured action plan to guide these enhancements.