Prevalence and factors associated with cheating among students of Qom University of Medical Sciences

Due to the negative impact of cheating at the learning environment and the need of planning to reduce it this study was performed to determine the frequency and the factors associated with cheating among college students Qom University of Medical Sciences in 2013 This study was a cross sectional study. Questionnaires were given to all Students and of the 536 students completed the questionnaire. Validity of questionnaire was confirmed by ten of experts and reliability of questionnaire was examined in pilot sample. After entering data into the SPSS software to descriptive data the mean and standard deviation statistic was used and for inferential statistics t-test was performed. 536 students participated in the study. Frequency of cheating among students of Anesthesiology was highest and among students of operating room and midwifery was lowest. The most way to cheating was looking at one side or exposed to own page and the lowest way of cheating was access to the questions before the exam and the presence of someone else in the exam. Additionally, most of the reason cheating was reported due to the evaluation criterion is just score and anxiety was reported as lowest reason. Many types of cheating are avoidable by creating laws, training and training management. Prevalence of cheating in academic environments of Iran is undeniable that is why extensive research shroud be done to identify the dependent variables to the phenomenon of cheating among students, especially medical students.