Knowledge, attitude and practices towards plagiarism observed in undergraduate medical students at a teaching school in south east Asia

Introduction

The word plagiarism is derived from Latin which means kidnapper, which was first described by Ben Jonson in 1601.1 Article on this topic was first time written by Halsted G.B in 1896 under title complement or plagiarism.2 Occurrence of plagiarism is about 11- 19% and rejection rate by journals was around 23% of articles due to this problem.3, 4

Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional and copying easy because of easy access to internet.5 Persistent desire to be successful, fear of discrimination if there are fewer publications, want to get promotion early, financial gains, peer pressure and desire to increase one’s record number of publications are some of causes for plagiarism.6 Lack of education at undergraduate level regarding plagiarism is another reason for this trend.7 Publication demand during interviews and to get university or research grants, incentives from pharmaceutical companies is another reason.8

Plagiarism can be easily checked with computer aided programmes. Cost of using such

Programmes are limitation for use by low budget journals and in developing countries. iThenticate is most trusted and award winning plagiarism detection program, which has access to 226,000 journals and more than 1,300 publishers worldwide.9

Retraction of article, blacklisting of author and expulsion from institute, criminal charges and apology letters are some of penalties for plagiarism.10, 11

Self-plagiarism is when author has added research on his previously published article and presents it as new without acknowledging first article. Making multiple articles from single article is known as salami slicing or salami tactics.12, 13

Plagiarism can be avoided by being honest while writing articles. Being original, taking time to write articles, writing in our own words, acknowledging all studied articles, proper reference, avoiding copy paste type of writing, strict adherence to author or journal guidelines and using plagiarism check before submitting.14, 15

In a student academic learning process, process of plagiarism starts very early from preparation for assessment, followed by seminar presentation. This unethical research practice knowingly or unknowingly gets inculcated in student as habit. Though this practice at this early stage do not have any much consequences, it will have severe impact when same habit continues for dissertation and publication work, that work will not be acceptable for any scientific journal with waste of time and resources and shame of mal-ethical practice and major hurdle for further research work.

This study was conducted to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practices towards plagiarism in undergraduate students in a teaching school of south East Asia.

Materials and Methods

We adopted cross-sectional Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) questionnaire design to evaluate students pattern of thinking about plagiarism, study was done during February-April 2022 among a sample of 200 undergraduate medical students. A sample size of 200 was chosen based on previous literature available and employing empirical sample size determination. Institutional ethics committee approval was taken before starting the study and informed consent was taken from each and every participant of the study.

All undergraduate students of both genders were allowed to participate. Since all participants of our study were 18 years old or above, written consent was taken only after ensuring anonymity of their identities and confidentiality of their responses. Students not willing to be a part of study were excluded.

Questionnaire was finalized after ambiguous and unsuitable questions were modified based on results of pre-test. Final questionnaire consisting of three sections addressing knowledge, attitude and practices of plagiarism was utilized for assessment. It consists of (a) Questions related to knowledge (b) Questions related to positive and negative attitudes toward plagiarism and (c) questions related to practice of plagiarism.16 Students were encouraged to fill all questions. Interviewer’s bias was avoided by engaging in co-prepared explanations of questions and proper measures were taken to reduce response and recall bias. These KAP Questionnaire forms were analysed after taking back from students and percentages were calculated. Data was presented in Microsoft excel and information was coded and entered into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 software.

Results

Out of 200 participants, 52% were females and 48% were males. Mean±SD of age of participants is 18.7±2.6 years.

Majority of students (80%) know about ethical principles in research and practices of plagiarism. Half of students (50%) had experience with instances of plagiarism and some know problems they should encounter if they do plagiarism.

Table 2, Table 3 shows attitudes of the participants towards plagiarism and Table 4 shows practice regarding plagiarism. Majority of participants reported that they have not practiced plagiarism.

Discussion

This study is a cross-sectional KAP study. Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) survey is predefined questions formatted in standardized questionnaires, measure extent of already known situation; confirm or reject hypothesis and provides an intervention strategy.

This study shows majority of students had knowledge regarding plagiarism. It is natural that every student will be aware of plagiarism, since it is common topic discussed in medical field. Overall knowledge of plagiarism of present study found to be similar to previous studies. Singh and Guram found almost similar result and Lindahl and Grace Study have found better response than our study.17, 18

Questions like self-plagiarism should not be punishable has same response, study done by Pupovac and others showed similar result.19 Many students had same opinion in short deadline as a reason for plagiarism. This is similar to studies done previously among pharmacy, medical, and nursing students by Ismail KH and others.20 However, burden of finishing in time with other activities may prompt students to copy and paste work, which at point of time appears to be appropriate for students. Study done by Hren D shows many students approved self-plagiarism.21

In our study, response to practice of plagiarism varied between 20% to 40%. Study done by Rennie reported about 56% prevalence of plagiarism among medical students.22

Another study done by Bilic-zulle et al on medical students reported that 83% plagiarism was prevalent.23 Study done by Kusnoor and Falik found plagiarism was around 87.6%.24

Studies done in UK found in plagiarism showed 61.9% of them admitted to having plagiarized online sources.25 In one of the studies conducted in Pakistan, 94% were not aware of penalties for plagiarism.26 A study done on dental and medical professionals in India reports lack of knowledge and awareness in this regard.27 Study done in Bulgaria revealed 47% committed self-plagiarism.16

This study gives us idea that students who are practicing plagiarism might be doing because of lack of skills & confidence in academic writing. So academic and scientific writing training should be given to students in every year of their undergraduate curriculum. This training should cover entire principles of avoiding plagiarism and penalty of plagiarism.

This study involved only undergraduate medical students. Participants of this study belonged to same age and socioeconomic status which shows there is lack of diversity.

Conclusion

This shows that majority of undergraduate medical students had knowledge regarding principles of ethics in research and problems they should encounter if they practice plagiarism. Majority have negative attitude towards plagiarism.

Source of Funding

None.

Conflict of Interest

None.