Investigating the Effect of Locus of Control and Research Ethics on Preventing PlagiarismCase Study of Iranian Criminal Science Experts

Plagiarism as a clear example of academic corruption violates research ethics and slows down the production of science. Despite the criminalization of plagiarism in the Law on the Protection of the Rights of Authors, Writers and Artists, the quantitative nature of research in Iran has led to the growth of this behavior. Due to the importance of the discussion, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the control source and research ethics in the prevention of plagiarism. The statistical population of the study is all members of the group and the Telegram channel of the School of Criminal Sciences as experts in Iranian criminal law, of which 212 people were selected as the final volume using the Cochran's formula. The data collection tool is the Ratter Control Source Questionnaire in which internal and external controls are checked. Also regarding research ethics and plagiarism, a researcher-made questionnaire design and their face and content validity using the opinions of three experts confirmed and their reliability for research ethics and plagiarism questionnaires with Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.82 and 0.87 was calculated .According to the findings, there is no relationship between internal and external control and prevention of plagiarism. Given that external control is used to justify unsuccessful behaviors and that not committing a crime is a successful behavior, the lack of a link between external control and plagiarism prevention is justified, but the lack of a link between internal control and plagiarism prevention suggests that self-control and morality have no role in preventing plagiarism. Thus, it can be said that the criminalization of plagiarism and the development of intelligent plagiarism detection software such as the software of Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology by increasing the costs of crime has led to deterrence. The findings also show that the variables of research ethics, age, academic status and employment status have a significant positive relationship with the prevention of plagiarism. This means that crime prevention is better guaranteed by increasing the age, improve academic standing and promote research ethics. However, studies show that gender has a significant negative relationship with the prevention of plagiarism. This means that women are more talented and willing to commit crimes. Findings from stepwise regression analysis also proved that among the five main variables, three factors of research ethics, academic status and gender are able to estimate crime prevention