THE ILLUSION OF UNDETECTED PLAGIARISM: AN ETHICAL AND ACADEMIC DILEMMA IN RESEARCH
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55519/JAMC-01-13258Keywords:
Academics, Attitudes, Intervention, plagiarism, policyAbstract
Background; Despite knowing about the fact that, Plagiarism is an academic fraud as there is a general lack of awareness that plagiarism should be avoided at all levels. Faculty play a crucial role in fostering ethical professionalism, so clear perspectives on plagiarism are essential. The objective was to enhance positive attitudes toward plagiarism among faculty members of Jinnah Medical & Dental College and Sohail University through an academic intervention, measured by an improvement in awareness and ethical perception. Method; this Pre and Post academic Interventional study was conducted from September to November 2022 for the period of three months at the Sohail University. About 130 faculty members were included through non-probability purposive sampling technique. The intervention was in a form of series of “Series of Interactive session (LGIS) on Plagiarism description its types, its consequences and HEC policy regarding Plagiarism in Research methodology through multimedia”. Study participants were called for the intervention in a calm and quiet auditorium and same self-administered questionnaire was given Pre and Post the intervention on the same participants after taking written consent from the study participants. ERC was taken from the Sohail University Hospital Committee. Data was entered and analyzed by SPSS version 25, Descriptive were calculated and paired t test was applied to determine the change in attitudes among faculty before and after the intervention. Results; it was found that positive attitude towards Plagiarism significantly improved post-intervention (SEM=0.435, 95% CI= 0.371‒1.99, p=0.001), similarly for negative attitude there was significant change after the intervention (SEM=0.266, 95% CI= 0.123‒1.39, p=0.001) and faculty recognition of norms also improved after intervention (SEM=0.327, 95% CI=0.306‒1.70, p=0.001). Conclusion; this study concluded that our educational intervention was found to be effective in improving the overall attitudes and norms towards plagiarism. Hence, we should promote regular educational sessions among researchers to overcome the increasing trend of Plagiarism at institutional level. Furthermore, we suggest to include this interventional session in the curriculum of all undergraduate programs to minimize the Plagiarism in Scientific writing.
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