Evaluation of attitude and knowledge of dental professors and residents of Isfahan dental school toward plagiarism in 2018

Plagiarism refers to the assignment of another work without the permission of that person. The purpose of this study was to determine the mean score of knowledge and assessment of attitude of dental residents and professors of Isfahan Dental School regarding the plagiarism.
Method & materials: This descriptive-analytic study was carried out in a questionnaire series of dental residents and professors of Isfahan Dental School in 1396. Questions of the questionnaire consist of three parts. The first part assesses the level of encounter and familiarity of dental residents and professors with this phenomenon. The second part is related to knowledge and the third part is related to the attitude. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using t-test and descriptive statistics. (P ≤0.001)
 the average score of professors' knowledge was 61.5% and resident knowledge was 62.01% which does not show significant difference. In evolution of the questions related to the assessment of attitude of both groups, the highest percentage of agreement to the cause of plagiarism was lack of adequate skills in their scientific writing. The tendency to impose stricter penalties on perpetrators amongst professors was more intense. Also, professor’s cognize the damage to the scientific community was the major consequence, while the assistants are more likely to relate this phenomenon to Contradiction with the rules.
It can be said that the knowledge and attitudes assessed in this study are far from ideal, and executing of scientific writing courses focusing on this phenomenon is suggested.