Perception of academic plagiarism by dentistry students

Credit given to authors helps avoid cases of plagiarism and intellectual fraud. The aim of this study is to describe the perception and behaviour of university students on academic plagiarism. Materials and methods: A descriptive, retrospective study was designed involving 184 students from undergraduate Dentistry students. They completed a structured questionnaire with the items: perception of plagiarism as a crime, the level of knowledge about plagiarism, paraphrasing, and how to react in case of finding duplicate scientific articles. Results: The students had a mean age 20.6 ± 2.8 years of, and 68.5% of students perceived plagiarism as a crime. Just over half (53.3%) of students fully understand what plagiarism is, with 23.4% partially knowing, and the other 23.4% did not know about it. This knowledge is greater in final year students (P>.05). More than one-third (38%) would not use a duplicate paper because they perceive it as an academic fraud article, but 8.2% of students consider they would use it as a duplicate of another study. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the perception of plagiarism as a crime is relatively high, with an average level of knowledge of what academic plagiarism is, and poor level of knowledge about what paraphrasing is.