Reference accuracy in Psychology Theses

The present study is an attempt to examine the accuracy of references found in five psychology theses submitted to University of Mysore from 2006 to 2010. All the 1, 477 references found in the theses were selected for verifying their accuracy. The study finding reveals that out of the 1, 477 references, 54.91% were incorrect and 24.98% were correct. The accuracy of the remaining 20.10% references was not verified because of unavailability of original or authentic sources. The error rate presented in the references is extremely high. On an average, the error rate present is 1.59. The errors presented in the incorrect references were mainly classified as major and minor errors. The presence of major errors was higher (969; 74.71%) than the minor errors (328; 25.29%). Omission of the authors (83), omission of important word from the title (29), spelling mistakes in the title (22), incorrect place name (15), incorrect publisher name (15), wrong year (37), edition number missed (7), wrong volume (19), issue number missed (490), first page number missed (47) and spelling mistakes in title of the journal (17) were the types of major errors identified in the study. Similarly, omission of authors’ initials (122), incomplete title (19), wrong last page number (38) and the omission of a not important word from journal (22) were the types of minor errors identified. The reasons for the presence of such inaccuracy in references were inadequate orientation and training in preparation of bibliography, lack of awareness about citation style of American Psychological Association (APA) manuals and reference management tools, and lack of policydirections from the universities for various components of a thesis.