Construction and Validation of Attitudes Toward Plagiarism Questionnaire

Abstract

Aim To develop and test the psychometric characteristics of a questionnaire measuring attitudes toward plagiarism.Methods Participants were 227 undergraduates and graduate students (128 women and 99 men) from three Croatian universities, with a median age of 21 years (range 18 to 48). Research was conducted from March to June 2009. For the purpose of construction of the first version of the questionnaire, 67 statements (items) were developed. The statements were based on the relevant literature and were developed following rules and recommendations for questionnaire writing, and 36 items were chosen for final validation. Factor analysis was used to find out the factor structure of the questionnaire and to measure construct validity. ResultsThe final version of the questionnaire consisted of 29 items divided into a three-factor structure: factor I -positive attitude toward plagiarism (12 items); factor IInegative attitude toward plagiarism (7 items); and factor III -subjective norms toward plagiarism (10 items). Cronbach α was calculated to confirm the reliability of the scale: factor I -α = 0.83; factor II -α = 0.79; and factor III -α = 0.85. Correlations between factors were: -0.37 between I and II, -0.41 between I and III, and +0.31 between II and III.Conclusion Attitudes Toward Plagiarism questionnaire was developed, with good psychometric characteristics. It will be used in future research as a standardized tool for measuring attitudes toward plagiarism. BASIC SCIENCES doi: 10.3325/cmj.2010.51.195 BASIC SCIENCES 196 Croat Med J. 2010 51: 195-201 www.cmj.hrIn recent years, scientific misconduct and academic dishonesty have been in the focus of interest of the academic and scientific community (1-5). Academic misconduct is defined as any type of cheating that compromises the educational process and academic integrity of the institution. It includes plagiarism, fabrication, deception, corruption, and sabotage, while scientific misconduct usually includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and other unethical behavior in professional scientific research (6-8). Plagiarism is the most frequent type of misconduct (9,10) and is defined as "unauthorized appropriation of another's work, ideas, methods, results or words without acknowledging the source and original author" (4). Self-plagiarism is widely considered to be a type of plagiarism, and it is defined as the inappropriate presentation of one's own published data or text as new and original. Among all types of misconduct in science and in an academic environment, plagiarism is consider to be the most vicious between peers, because it constitutes theft of intellectual property, which is the core achievement of intellectual work.The implementation of computer technology and the availability of scientific papers and books in electronic form have facilitated plagiarizing by allowing simple "copy-andpaste" procedures (11). On the other hand, the same technology has also enabled the development of plagiarism detection software (12,13).The extent of acade...

Measuring attitudes toward plagiarism: issues and psychometric solutions

“…The 12-item Plagiarism Attitude Scale by Harris (2001) was chosen for two main reasons: 1) it has been used in a number of studies on plagiarism both in Australia and internationally (e.g., Ambery et al, 2005;Egan, 2008;Gururajan and Roberts, 2005;Harris, 2001;Mavrinac et al, 2010;Pupovac et al, 2010); and 2) there has been no psychometric analysis of this scale using the Rasch Model.…”

“…In support of this point, Gururajan and Roberts (2005) argue that 'concrete evidence,' defined as data collected by using rigorously tested psychometric instruments, is yet to be attained on Australian students' attitudes and perceptions of plagiarism. Indeed, there is a clear need for the construction of a standardised and validity-tested plagiarism attitude measurement instrument that can be used internationally for comparative studies (although for one possible candidate, see Mavrinac et al, 2010).…”

Exploring attitude toward research and plagiarism among faculty members and senior residents in a medical school of North India: A cross-sectional study

“…The third component consisted of ATP scale containing 29 statements. [16] Both these scales are to be answered by respondents on a 5-point Likert scale (1-strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3-neither agree nor disagree, 4-agree, and 5-strongly agree) for each statement. In the 29 item ATP scale, positive attitude is measured by 12 statements, negative attitude is measured by 7 statements and subjective norms are measured by 10 statements.…”

Improving knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the nursing faculty members and postgraduate students towards plagiarism in academic writing

“…Then, the range of every factor was allocated into three equivalent parts representing low, moderate and high score. [16] the reliability of tool II was calculated to affirm the reliability: factor I positive ATP (12 items); -α = 0.83; factor II negative ATP (7 items); -α = 0.79; and factor III subjective norms toward plagiarism (10 items).…”

“…Tool II: Attitudes toward Plagiarism Scale (ATP) Developed by Mavrinac et al [16] It is consisted of 29 items used to measure and evaluate the ATP. It includes three attitudinal factors:…”