Medical students and scientificity

Summary

With the introduction of additional courses on scientificity in medical studies, as envisaged by the new National Competence-Based Learning Objectives Catalogue for Medicine (NKLM), not only should theoretical knowledge of research methods be taught to a greater extent, but students should also acquire practical skills in this area.

Within the framework of a feasibility study, an advanced course is to be tested and evaluated, which teaches medical students the necessary skills for writing a research paper and allows them to carry out a project independently. The project topic is given, and students then actively participate from the drafting stage through to publication. Participants complete the advanced skills course with their own written scientific project paper. The advanced course is tested with 6-7 participants and evaluated in a pre-post design by means of questionnaires, time spent and acceptance measures.

The topic of the joint project with the students (main study) is the design and implementation of a survey on expectations and attitudes of students towards the introduction of increased scientificity in medical studies. For this purpose, all medical students (1st-10th semester) of the Heidelberg Medical Faculty will be provided with a link to an online questionnaire. It is expected that about 100 students will participate in the survey and provide usable data sets. The evaluation of the feasibility and main study will be descriptive.

Within the scope of the main study, the seminar participants take on different sub-topics (e.g. literature research, preparation of the questionnaire, publication of results) and write their research paper about these.

If the teaching project is successful, this format could be carried out on an ongoing basis with further scientific study topics and new students.