ABSTRACT

The most common type of plagiarism is copying and pasting passages from previously published work into a paper by another researcher. These people may even claim they did not understand they were committing plagiarism. The aim of the study was to assess knowledge and attitude of dental undergraduate and postgraduate students towards plagiarism in a private dental college. A close ended, standard questionnaire containing 24 statements on a 5 point Likert scale for each statement was used to collect data which measures three attitudinal factors (positive and negative attitude and subjective norms) towards plagiarism. The positive attitude towards plagiarism reflects approval and justification of such behaviour. Negative attitude towards plagiarism expresses condemnation and disapproval of plagiarism. Subjective norm expresses common thinking about the prevalence of plagiarism and the acceptance of such behaviour in the academic and scientific communities. A total of 104 responses were received. Out of which 71% were females and 29% were males.60.38% of the respondents agreed that sometimes one can’t avoid plagiarism and 13.21% disagreed and 26.42% of them were neutral. Among respondents 58.4% agreed that it is justified to use previous descriptions of method as it won’t change. Chi square test shows that this difference was significant (p=0.000). Within the limitations of the present study, the attitude of the dental students reflect good levels of seriousness and awareness with which plagiarism is perceived. Postgraduate students had moderately better knowledge on plagiarism when compared to undergraduates. Females showed better knowledge compared to males. Keywords: Plagiarism, dental postgraduate students, faculty members, scientific misconduct
Publication date: 01/08/2021

https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2021/August/MS_IJBPAS_2021_AUG_SPCL_1034.pdf

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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2021/10.8.1034