Research Literacy and Ethical Awareness of University Students in the Internet Era: A Gap Between Perception and Practice

This study assessed the ethical consciousness and research literacy of research students at a public university in Bangladesh. Using convenience sampling, hardcopy questionnaires were distributed to students, and 226 were obtained. Despite using the internet for a variety of research objectives, respondents classified themselves as novices regarding online ability. While answering fifteen statements covering subjects including coming up with research ideas, gap analysis, search strategies, research ethics, and scholarly communication, students evaluated their proficiency in each research literacy category. Students’ assessments of their comprehension of research literacy and their actual practical understanding differ, even if they are given practical activities that are pertinent to certain research components. The respondents completed fifteen tasks, and four of these got higher correct answers (more than 50%). These tasks covered topics such as authorship, plagiarism, in-text citation, and interpretation of study results. Most of the responses to three more tasks – self-plagiarism, fair use, and referencing – were incorrect (below 30%). For the tasks including paraphrasing, intellectual property, phrase search, Boolean operator, truncation symbols, parentheses, proximity operator, and predatory journals, correct answers ranged from 30 to 45%. To assist students in becoming proficient researchers, the author suggested designing curricula with more research and ethical contents.