Combating Scientific Misconduct: The Role of Focused Workshops in Changing Attitudes Towards Plagiarism

Abstract

IntroductionScientific misconduct is a global issue. There is low awareness among health professionals regarding plagiarism, particularly in developing countries, including Pakistan. There is no formal training in the ethical conduct of research or writing for under- and post-graduate students in the majority of medical schools in Pakistan. Internet access to published literature has made plagiarism easy. The aim of this study was to document the effectiveness of focused workshops on reducing scientific misconduct as measured using a modified version of the attitude towards plagiarism questionnaire (ATPQ) assessment tool.Materials and methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted with participants of workshops on scientific misconduct. Demographic data were recorded. A modified ATPQ was used as a pre- and post-test for workshop participants. Data were entered in SPSS v20 (IBM< Armonk, NY, US). Frequencies and descriptive statistics were analyzed. An independent sample t-test was run to analyze differences in mean scores on pre-workshop ATPQ and differences in mean scores on post-test scores.ResultsThere were 38 males and 42 females (mean age: 26.2 years) who participated in the workshops and completed the pre- and post-assessments. Most (59; 73.75%) were final-year medical students. One-third (33.8%) of the respondents had neither attended workshops related to ethics in medical research nor published manuscripts in medical journals (32.5%). More than half (55%) admitted witnessing unethical practices in research. There was a significant improvement in attitudes toward plagiarism after attending the workshop (mean difference = 7.18 (6.2), t = 10.32, P < .001).ConclusionsFocused workshops on how to detect and avoid scientific misconduct can help increase knowledge and improve attitudes towards plagiarism, as assessed by the modified ATPQ. Students, residents, and faculty members must be trained to conduct ethical medical research and avoid all forms of scientific misconduct.

Attitudes of researchers towards plagiarism: A study on a tertiary care hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

“…To eliminate or at least minimize plagiarism among researchers, efforts are needed to enhance creativity, establish new learning pathways, enhance writing skills, and increase awareness among researchers. A recent study by Rathore, Fatima, Farooq, and Mansoor () highlighted the need and importance of workshops for improving awareness of research ethics and reducing scientific misconduct in developing countries. The study emphasized that workshops specifically focusing on plagiarism can improve the present scenario.…”

Analysis through workshop: Awareness of plagiarism among the faculty of medical sciences.

“…In this study we found he similar significant difference among the faculty member's attitude and knowledge related to the importance of plagiarism after pre and post workshop analysis. [12][13] The study was done at one of the University of Egypt, the data was collected by the faculty members of nursing and pre and post workshop analysis was done to compare the basic knowledge regarding plagiarism. 55% of the participants were aware about the plagiarism, 58.8% of them were refusing plagiarism and 51% given incorrect answers in pretest analysis while according to post analysis there was significant difference in pre and posttest analysis.…”

Student perceptions of plagiarism: A study of Vietnam- and New Zealand-educated postgraduate students

“…Others reported inadequate understanding of plagiarism among undergraduates in Pakistan (Javaeed et al, 2019;Ramzan et al, 2012;Rathore et al, 2018), Thailand (Khathayut et al, 2020), Japan (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005), Taiwan (Chien, 2017), and China (Hu & Lei, 2012. Limited understanding of plagiarism was also held by postgraduate students in Japan (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005), Iran (Rezanejad & Rezaei, 2013), Thailand (Puengpipattrakul, 2016), and Pakistan (Ramzan et al, 2012;Rathore et al, 2018). Du (2020) found that most Chinese postgraduate students possessed limited understanding of subtle plagiarism before engaging in a training section about referencing and plagiarism.…”

“…For example, Du (2020) indicated a lack of instruction on appropriate referencing in most tertiary institutions in mainland China. Rathore et al (2018) found that many students in a Pakistani university received inadequate training on plagiarism. Limited plagiarism education was reported in Thai (Khathayut et al, 2020;Puengpipattrakul, 2016), Iranian (Babaii & Nejadghanbar, 2017;Rezanejad & Rezaei, 2013), and Japanese (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005) contexts.…”

“…Training on plagiarism-related issues could reduce student plagiarism in Taiwanese (Shang, 2019), Vietnamese (Perkins & Roe, 2020), and the USA (Belter & Du Pré, 2009) educational contexts. Training workshops on plagiarism also increase student understanding of the issue (Chen & Van Ullen, 2011;Rathore et al, 2018).…”