Undergraduate Research in Medical Curriculum: Student's Perspective

The undergraduate medical curriculum has been designed to produce a medical practitioner, and therefore the emphasis is on teaching rather than on research. Developing research skills is vital for the development of the students reasoning and questioning abilities. However little is known about how the students perceive research.

The study was undertaken among the final year students studying in a teaching hospital, with the aim of assessing the student’s perspective towards, research in undergraduate curriculum, by a validated and piloted questionnaire based individual interview.

With a sample size of 30%, 64% were aware of undergraduate research, and 16.66% have participated in undergraduate research, with main benefit reported being publication of results/presentation in conference (36.66%). The main challenges reported were difficulty in finding a supervisor (43.33%).

Overall 23.33% opted for an academic career in future as their first choice, 63.33% expressed the need to have research on the undergraduate curriculum as an elective discipline, and 26.66% wanted it as a compulsory discipline.

The subgroup of students who had undertaken research project had expressed that their seniors were their main motivation.

There is a need to undertake further studies in this regard to enable educators to appropriately incorporate relevant research in undergraduate curriculum.

Author(s): Masaraf Hussain1*, Yookarin Khonglah2 and Yasmeen Hynniewta3

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