Academic Misconduct in Carrying out an Academic Project: A Study among the Sixth-year Students of Mashhad Dental School

Academic misconduct among the students is a critical problem of the universities and academies. Regarding this, the present study aimed to describe the cheating ways and the prevalence, roots, as well as methods of confrontation with this phenomenon in the words of the sixth-year dental students.
For the purpose of the study, a five-item open-ended questionnaire was employed in which a history of a suspected academic project of the same students was described. The obtained data were analyzed based on the prevalence of the responses. In addition, the student's responses were subjected to content analysis.
Out of the 77 students who participated in the study, 77.9% of them explicitly accepted that cheating occurred during the last year project. Based on the responses of the students, the roots of this phenomenon could be categorized as student-related, tutor-related, and macro issues. The substantial majority (98.7%) of the students believed that reporting the cheating to the tutor was an unacceptable action. However, there was no agreement among the students about the sensitivity level that a tutor should have about the academic misconducts. Moreover, the suggested strategies of the students were categorized into three groups, including the technical suggestions for teaching courses, suggestions about the methods of tutor's confrontation with such issues, and general suggestions.
The academic tutors and tutorial authorities should take the student's points into account in order to prevent the academic misconduct and effectively address the issue in a new way.