Background and aim: One of the important ways to assess the status of utilizing sources used by students in writing dissertations, is citation analysis. The aim of this study was to evaluate rate of using information resources in Mazandaran and Shomal Universities by MA students majoring in physical education and compare two universities.

Material and methods: The citation analysis method was used in this study and the population was 11814 counts of citations which were extracted from the sources and references of 123 master's dissertations at University of Mazandaran (63 copies) and University of Shomal (60 copies). Data were analyzed using SPSS software and Excel.

Findings: The results showed that the rate of citation to Latin sources was more than it to Persian sources in both universities. The rate of citation to Latin sources was higher in Mazandaran University (%81/26) than Shomal University (%50/15). The percentage of students' citation to articles in the University of Mazandaran (73/36%) and University of Shomal (51/37%) was higher than it to other sources. The t-test results indicated that there was a significant difference between two Universities in terms of the rate of citation to Latin and Persian sources, dissertations and articles.

Conclusion: The findings showed that students used different information-seeking patterns to write thesis. So, it was concluded that the academic orientation, college facilities and access to various sources had effect on how to write the citation.