Determining the Level of Commitment to Research Ethics in Terms of Citation Accuracy and Correctness in University Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to determine the level of commitment to research ethics regarding the accuracy and correctness of citations in the reference list of theses and dissertations at Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. The study is comparative in method, and purpose-wise it is applied. The statistical sample comprised of 1012 theses and dissertations by Master, MD, and Ph.D. graduates during 2015-16. The sampling method was "random stratified" with a volume of 5%. Two researcher-made checklists were used to collect data, which were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics. Findings show an average of 66 citations in each thesis or dissertation. The minimum and the maximum number of citations in a thesis/dissertation were 11 and 183, respectively. Out of the total 3339 studied citations, 165 citations (4.9%) were not retrieved; 214 citations (6.4 %) were identified as duplicates; 1322 citations (39.59 %) had various errors, and no faults were identified with the other 1644 (49.05 %) citations. Findings indicate that the examined theses/dissertations were acceptable in terms of citation correctness during the studied period but had a less desirable status regarding citation accuracy.