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Status of scientific research integrity knowledge in dental undergraduates from 34 universities in China

BMC Medical Ethics volume 26, Article number: 29 (2025) Cite this article

Abstract

Background

This study investigated the status of research integrity knowledge among dental undergraduates from 34 Chinese universities in 5 key demographic regions.

Methods

Questionnaires regarding the status of research integrity, including perception, attitude, and firsthand experience of scientific research integrity, were distributed to dental undergraduates of 34 Chinese universities. These universities were from 5 key demographic regions of China, i.e., eastern, western, northern, southern, and central. The questionnaires filled out by 1514 participants were further analyzed.

Results

The results showed that among the participants, nearly 70% acquire scientific integrity knowledge through courses, as well as ideological and political education, while the remaining students acquire scientific integrity knowledge through other means, such as books and conferences. From the attitude perspective, most students (80-90%) oppose scientific misconduct. However, a few students also have an insufficient understanding of scientific misconduct and still need to improve their scientific research integrity training further. We also found that the research integrity training and the surrounding research environment affect students' attitudes and self-behavior regarding scientific integrity.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that the ethical academic and research environment, implementation of scientific integrity courses in the curriculum, and proper supervision are vital in improving scientific research integrity knowledge in dental undergraduates in Chinese universities.

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Background

Research integrity, also known as responsible conduct of research, implies adherence to ethical standards and good research practices [1]. Research integrity is an indispensable fundamental principle in scientific research and plays a crucial role in advancing scientific development, ensuring the credibility of study, and upholding the interests of society at large [2, 3]. Research misconduct is traditionally defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism (FFP) [4]. Questionable research practices falling outside of FFP are estimated to be even more prevalent [5]. The consequences of research misconduct are not only related to an individual's reputation but also affect the development and application of the entire scientific field. Therefore, honest, transparent, and responsible scientific conduct is a fundamental requirement for maintaining scientific research order and progress [2, 6].

Undergraduate students are crucial for future scientific research, and their knowledge about scientific integrity shapes the future academic atmosphere [7,8,9]. To regulate research conduct and foster a positive research environment, it is essential to instill research integrity knowledge in students early in their academic careers [10]. In recent years, with the increase of pressure and the rise of utilitarianism in society, incidents of violation of scientific integrity among university students have been frequently experienced [11, 12]. Previous studies indicate that educating undergraduate students on academic integrity is crucial [13,14,15]. Therefore, it is essential to investigate undergraduates' awareness of scientific research integrity and set up an education system based on specific circumstances.

With the increasing number of undergraduate students in dentistry in China, their importance in the field of dental research is also growing [16,17,18]. However, there is limited research on the understanding of scientific research integrity among dental undergraduates in China [19, 20]. To assess the awareness of research integrity among dental undergraduates and to promote a highly ethical research environment in dentistry, this study surveyed dental undergraduates from 34 Chinese universities from 5 key demographic regions. Consequently, the present study aims to address four specific questions:

  • Question 1: Approaches: How did the students obtain research integrity knowledge?

  • Question 2: Research integrity environment: Does the witness of scientific misconduct cases affect scientific integrity?

  • Question 3: Attitudes: What are the attitudes of dental undergraduates concerning various kinds of behavior considered in the literature to be incompatible with research integrity?

  • Question 4: Behaviors: What kinds of research misconduct do dental undergraduates report to have engaged in themselves?

Methods

Design and sample

We distributed online questionnaires to 50 Chinese universities in five major demographic regions, i.e., eastern, southern, western, northern, and central China, from January 2024 to February 2024. However, some dental schools need approval from the university to fill out such questionnaires, which is time-consuming. Since the questionnaire collection was planned to be completed within 1 month, we could not include the dental schools that need university approval. Therefore, we finally collected questionnaires from 34 dental schools. The inclusion criteria were: (1) the interviewees were able to complete the questionnaire within 1 month, (2) schools with dentistry major, and (3) consent to accept the questionnaire survey. The exclusion criteria were: (1) schools that declined to participate in the survey and (2) schools that did not have a dentistry major.

The questionnaire combines questionnaires initially developed in Sweden [21] and the United States [22]. The questionnaire included 52 questions, divided into 5 parts, involving basic personal information, knowledge, experience, attitude, and individual behavior towards scientific research integrity (Supplementary materials). The term academic misconduct is defined at the beginning of the first part.

We designed an online software setting limiting one ID to only one questionnaire, avoiding the phenomenon of one person filling it out multiple times. Moreover, an incomplete questionnaire could not be submitted. The author (Xiaojin WU) was responsible for the online system, whom students could directly contact in case of technical issues. Before sending the questionnaire, quality control inspections were conducted through discussions with the project reference group and pilots with experts. The questionnaires were designed to be filled out online—a total of 1514 participants filled out the questionnaires.

Data collection and measures

All participants were given the same questions about a person's behavior over the past 1 year. A 1-year time frame was selected to limit recall bias, which is the same as the research framework used in another similar study [23].

The attitude questions referred to the questionnaire developed by Kalichman [22], which contains 14 descriptions of attitudes toward scientific misconduct. Each item uses a five-point Likert scale, from “totally disagree” to “totally agree”. The study questions about knowledge, experience, and action were derived from a questionnaire developed by Nilstun et al. [23]. The questionnaire contains 26 questions, such as “Have you during the last 12 months been exposed to unethical pressure concerning?” which should be answered by “Yes, No, or Uncertain”.

Statistical analysis

SPSS 25.0 was applied to process data. The data was expressed using frequency and percentage. An independent sample t-test determined the difference between the two categories, and for three or more categories, it was determined by a one-way ANOVA. The level of significance was set at p value of 0.05.

Results

General information

Questionnaires filled out by a total of 1514 participants were collected. The overall response rate was 68%. Table 1 shows the basic information of the respondents, including gender, grade, region, participation in research, and participation in research integrity training. Among 1,514 participants, 715 (47.20%) were male and 799 (52.80%) were female. Participants were the first to fifth-year dental undergraduates. The demographic region was divided into five regions, i.e., northern, southern, eastern, western, and central China (Table 1). A total of 719 participants (47.50%) have been involved in scientific research, 30.88% of which felt pressure in the order of authors, 68.57% felt pressure in research design/method, 67.04% were stressed about data analysis, and 64.39% were worried about results which might lead to research misconduct (Table 2). The remaining 795 (52.50%) participants have no scientific research experience (Table 1).

Table 1 Participants’ general information and demographic data
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Table 2 Experienced pressure to commit research misconduct
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Approaches to obtaining research integrity knowledge

Dental undergraduates in different regions acquire knowledge of scientific integrity. Most students (64.40–69.10%) learned about research integrity from supervisors. But the situation varies from region to region. In the northern region, 74.40% of students gained knowledge of scientific integrity through classes or ideological political education. In the southern, eastern, and central regions, more participants acquire scientific integrity knowledge through supervisor guidance (Table 3).

Table 3 Ways of knowledge gain about scientific research integrity
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The number of students who witnessed scientific misconduct cases in their surroundings

Table 4 shows the number of students who have witnessed scientific misconduct cases in their surroundings. The results showed that the situation of data fraud in the surrounding environment of the central region is quite different from that of other regions. Regarding misleading results, the western region responded more than other regions. In general, the incidence of misleading data is higher than other events. The number given refers to the percentage (%) of respondents answering “Yes” to the questions.

Table 4 The number of students who witnessed scientific misconduct cases in their surroundings during the last 12 months
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Students’ attitude towards scientific misconduct

The attitudes of undergraduates towards scientific misconduct differ in different regions. Most students (93.86%) think taking credit for the data generated by someone else is inappropriate. A total of 62.88% of students believe that if fabricated data are discovered in a published paper, all co-authors must bear the consequences. Most students (88.13–97.56%) agree that it is not appropriate to fabricate data or report falsified data. However, when it comes to using different statistical methods to obtain statistically different results, 73.51% of students think it is inappropriate. Most students believe it is never appropriate to take credit for the ideas generated by someone else. Nearly 80.00% of students responded that they had a moral obligation to take action after discovering academic misconduct by others. Over two-thirds responded that they would report it to the person in charge. When a published paper was found to have falsified data, nearly two-thirds of the students responded that all authors were to blame in the same way (Table 5).

Table 5 Student’s attitude to research misconduct and responsibilities
Full size table

We also found that 53.04% of students believe there is a high risk of exposure if they commit scientific misconduct such as FFP or improper authorship. In terms of consequences, more than two-thirds of students believe that the consequences of FFP, inappropriate authorship, and other scientific misconduct are very serious. They believe the percentage of people engaging in these behaviors is tiny, but the consequences can be very serious once detected.

Student self-reported scientific misconduct behaviors

When asked if the students had engaged in scientific misconduct, 0.32–16.25% percent said they had done so (Table 6). About 1.88% from the northern region and 1.43% from the southern region reported self-involvement in data fabrication. After data analysis, 1.94–5.32% of the students selectively deleted or changed data. Before performing data analysis, 2.53–4.38% of students deleted their data. This shows that there are still some students who are not rigorous in data processing. After looking at the impact of doing so on the results, 11.70% of students decided whether to exclude data. After seeing that the results were almost statistically significant, 3.30–16.25% of the students decided to collect more data, which accounted for the highest proportion of self-reported scientific misconduct behaviors. In the question of deliberately not mentioning an organization that funded your research in the publication of your study, only 0.32 to 3.75% of students had this problem, which was the lowest proportion of these questions. The occurrence of students' scientific misconduct is also different in different regions. Less number of students from the eastern region responded regarding their involvement in such activities. Responses to the question of whether to use phrases or ideas of others without their permission or to use phrases or ideas of others without citation also varied across the five regions.

Table 6 Student self-reported scientific misconducted behaviors
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Correlation between attitude, behavior, training, and research integrity environment

We analyzed the relationship between research integrity training and students’ attitudes toward research misconduct. The results showed that students who participated in research integrity training had a more positive attitude than those who did not participate in the training, and the results were significantly different (p < 0.05). In addition, we also analyzed the relationship between the witness of research misconduct in their surroundings (research integrity environment) and their attitude towards scientific research misconduct and found that compared with students who witnessed research misconduct, the students who did not witness research misconduct have a more positive attitude towards scientific research integrity (p < 0.05) (Table 7).

Table 7 The relationship between training, research environment, and attitude
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Similarly, compared with students who did not participate in scientific research integrity training, we found that students who participated in scientific research integrity training had less involvement in scientific misconduct (p < 0.05). Students who did not witness research misconduct also showed less involvement in scientific misconduct (p < 0.05) (Table 8). These results indicate that both the research integrity training and the surrounding research environment affect student’s attitude and self-behavior regarding scientific integrity.

Table 8 The relationship between training, research environment, and self-behavior
Full size table

Discussion

Students’ understanding of research integrity is the foundation of reliable research outcomes. Although research integrity perception among postgraduates and Ph.D. students from different majors has been reported [23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31], this phenomenon in undergraduates is rarely investigated. In this study, we investigated the status of research integrity knowledge among dental undergraduates from 34 Chinese universities in 5 key demographic regions. Only 44.80% of students have received research integrity training, indicating that research integrity education for dental undergraduates needs to be further promoted [32,33,34]. In this study, dental undergraduates acquire knowledge of scientific integrity in various ways, including courses and ideological/political education (51.20–74.40%), books (36.60–51.50%), internet (51.20–69.10%), supervisors (64.40–69.10%), lectures (43.60–60.20%), and conferences (36.60–46.90%). Most of them acquire knowledge of scientific research integrity through books, seminars, courses, and ideological/political education. More than 50.00% of students acquire knowledge through the Internet, and the remaining students acquire knowledge through lectures, supervisors, and other means (Table 3). The advent of the internet era makes the way for students to acquire knowledge more extensive and convenient [35,36,37]. Since undergraduates spend a lot of time learning in the classroom, implementing a scientific research integrity curriculum could be beneficial [28, 37]. Therefore, Internet-based learning combined with conventional teaching about scientific integrity could be more effective. Fuerholzer K et al. reported the positive impact of a compulsory scientific integrity curriculum on students’ perceptions of scientific integrity among German medical students [38]. Based on our findings and reports from the literature [39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48], an effective research integrity curriculum should be designed and implemented for dental undergraduates to deepen their understanding of the importance of scientific research integrity.

In our study, more than half of the students recognized the negative consequences of scientific misconduct. They believed that FFP, authorship misconduct, and other scientific misconduct were at high risk of being discovered. Around 40.00% of students think it is acceptable to selectively omit contradictory results/falsify or fabricate data to expedite publication (Table 5). However, in similar studies in clinical medicine, only 2.70–13.00% of Ph.D. students think this is acceptable [23, 49]. This may indicate that different learning experiences and duration of scientific research training will have a different impact on the perception of scientific research integrity. Dental Ph.D. students' cognition of this problem and comparison with dental undergraduates' cognition is still unknown. On the question, “Have you, during the last 12 months, been exposed to unethical pressure concerning research design/method, analysis, and results?” 64.39–68.57% of dental undergraduates from China responded “Yes” (Table 2). In studies in clinical medicine Ph.D students, only 6.00% replied “Yes” [23, 49]. Interestingly, most dental undergraduates (53.13–65.85%) believe that co-authors should share the same responsibility if a paper is published based on fabricated data (Table 5). In the Hofmann B et al. study, less than half of Ph.D. students think that co-authors need to bear the same responsibility. These results reflect different levels of understanding about research integrity among undergraduates, postgraduates, and Ph.D. students from other parts of the world. Such a variation might be related to limited training/teaching regarding research integrity for undergraduates and post-graduates compared with Ph.D. students. Undergraduates and postgraduates spend most of their time on theoretical lectures and little time engaging in scientific research. In contrast, Ph.D. are more independent researchers and have more exposure to the research environment, seminars, presentations, and conferences than undergraduates and postgraduates.

One in ten dental undergraduates admitted to collecting more data after seeing that the results were almost statistically significant (Table 6). It can be seen that undergraduates’ understanding of scientific research integrity is not deep enough, and the impact of scientific research misconduct is not well understood. Moreover, through statistical analysis, we found that an ethical scientific research environment generates a positive attitude towards scientific research integrity, reducing the chances of misconduct.

In the current education system, scientific research output is not the key requirement for undergraduates, so many students are still in the preliminary stage of conducting scientific research, and their understanding of scientific research is not very deep. On the other hand, with the increasingly fierce competition, the pressure for undergraduates to enter higher education is gradually increasing, and more and more students hope to enhance their advantages through scientific research. Under such pressure, it may be possible for students to achieve results through scientific research misconduct. Moreover, undergraduates usually do not have a fixed mentor and lack targeted guidance and training. Compared with undergraduate students, graduate students and Ph.D. students have specific mentors. The mentors spend a long time guiding and mentoring. Therefore, the guidance and training received by undergraduates is far from enough. Therefore, setting up research integrity courses is crucial to enhancing undergraduate students' scientific research cognition.

Strengths and limitations of this study

The strength of our research is that the survey covers a wide area, including five major regions in China. In addition, it summarizes the understanding of dental undergraduates to scientific research integrity, which makes up for the current research gap in this area. The limitation of this study is that the number of participants from different regions varies greatly, mainly due to the limited time provided to fill up the questionnaires. Moreover, this study only covered dental undergraduates. Future studies involving undergraduates, postgraduates, and Ph.D. students from different faculties of Chinese Universities could be more reflective of the status of scientific research integrity knowledge in Chinese university students. There are also shortcomings in the content of the questionnaire. We should ask students whether they use these fabricated data to publish papers, apply for patents/grant applications, or make presentations if they have published the falsified data publicly or filed a patent with falsified data that will be serious scientific misconduct. We will supplement this question in future questionnaire surveys.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that practical research integrity courses/training and an ethical research environment are crucial to improving scientific research integrity among dental undergraduates in China.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants of the present study for their time and dedication. We wish to show gratitude to the medical staff of the Dentistry faculty of Southern Medical University, Sun Yat-sen University, Jinan University, Lanzhou University, Sichuan University, Jilin University, Zhengzhou University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Peking University, Wenzhou Medical University, Zhejiang Traditional Chinese Medicine University, Wuhan University, Foshan University of Science and Technology, Chongqing Medical University, Air Force Medical University, Anhui Medical University, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Xuzhou Medical University, Shantou University, Xi 'an Medical University, Shandong First Medical University, Hubei University of Science and Technology, Ningxia Medical University, Guangdong Medical University, Zunyi Medical University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Henan University, Xinjiang Medical University, Tianjin Medical University, Dalian University, Changzhi Medical University, Qingdao University, Nanjing Medical University, Guangzhou Medical University.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2023A1515030055), the Science and Technology Planning Projects of Guangzhou City, China (2024A03J0143, 202201020203 and 202201020117), the Characteristic Innovation Project of Guangdong Education Department (2022KTSCX095), the Science and Technology Innovation Strategy Special Fund Overseas Teacher Project of Guangdong (2023-1643), the Science and Technology Innovation Project of Guangzhou Medical University (20231057004, 2024-61-54), and the Undergraduate Student Innovation Ability Promotion Project of Guangzhou Medical University (2022-3-2-2).

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Author notes

  1. Xiaojin Wu, Tongxin Zheng and Yufei Nie contributed equally and share the first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Basic Oral Medicine, School and Hospital of Stomatology, Guangdong Engineering Research Center of Oral Restoration and Reconstruction, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510812, China

    Xiaojin Wu, Tongxin Zheng, Janak L. Pathak & Lihong Wu

  2. Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Basic and Applied Research of Oral Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou, 510812, China

    Xiaojin Wu, Tongxin Zheng, Janak L. Pathak & Lihong Wu

  3. Foshan Stomatology Hospital, School of Medicine, Foshan University, Foshan, 528000, China

    Yufei Nie

  4. Department of Clinical Medicine, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, 515063, China

    Jingyi Wu

  5. Department of Periodontology, School and Hospital of Stomatology, Guangdong Engineering Research Center of Oral Restoration and Reconstruction, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510812, China

    Jirong Chen

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Contributions

XJW: Design of study, data collection, writing the first draft, contribution to draft, revision of draft. TXZ: Data collection, analysis of data, contribution to draft, revision of draft. YFN: Data collection, analysis of data, manuscript writing. JYW: Data collection, analysis of data. JRC: Data collection, analysis of data. JLP: Data collection, several revisions of draft and manuscript writing. LHW: Design of study, funding acquisition, contribution to draft, several revisions of draft, and final approval.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Janak L. Pathak or Lihong Wu.

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Wu, X., Zheng, T., Nie, Y. et al. Status of scientific research integrity knowledge in dental undergraduates from 34 universities in China. BMC Med Ethics 26, 29 (2025). https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s12910-025-01183-8

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  • DOI: https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/s12910-025-01183-8

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BMC Medical Ethics

ISSN: 1472-6939

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