Exploring Scientific Misconduct in Morocco Based on an Analysis of Plagiarism Perception in a Cohort of 1,220 Researchers and Students

Plagiarism is widely regarded as an issue of low- and middle-income countries because of several factors such as the lack of ethics policy and poor research training. In Morocco, plagiarism and its perception by academics has not been investigated on a large scale. In this study, we evaluated different aspects of plagiarism among students and researchers in all public universities of Morocco based on a 23-questions cross-sectional survey. Factors associated with plagiarism were explored using contingency tables and logistic regression. The survey results covered all public universities (n=12) and included 1,220 responses from undergraduate students (31.4%), followed by PhD students (26.6%), scientific graduates (19%), PhD holders and postdoctoral fellows (12.2%), and lastly university professors (10.7%). The academic level was highly significantly associated with plagiarism (p<0.001). Most respondents that committed plagiarism were respectively scientific graduates (58.2%), PhD students (44.6%), PhD holders and postdoctoral fellows (37.6%), and finally university professors (28.2%). Having publication records was statistically associated with a reduced plagiarism (p=0.002). Notably, the ability of participants to correctly define plagiarism was also highly significantly associated with a reduced plagiarism misconduct (p<0.001 for all). Unintentional plagiarism (p<0.001), time constraint to write an original text (p<0.001), and inability of participants to paraphrase (p<0.001) were associated factors of Moroccan scholars with plagiarism. Moreover, participants that considered plagiarism as a serious issue in academic research had significantly committed less plagiarism (p<0.001). The current study showed that various actionable factors associated with plagiarism can be targeted by educational interventions, and therefore, it provided the rationale to build training programs on research integrity in Morocco.