Perception and Attitudes of Medical Students Towards Research and Survey

Abstract

Background

Research experience has traditionally been recognized as an important part of medical education. This research would mainly discuss about the medical students attitude towards research and surveys which comprises of perception of medical students towards research, their attitude towards research, the barriers faced by the students to conduct a research as well as their level of research guidance and the most common type of research done.

Objective

The aim of this paper is to determine the perception and attitudes of medical students towards research among Malaysian medical students from both public and private universities.

Methods

A set of questionnaire consisting of 40 close-ended questions were distributed among the targeted medical students. Through convenience sampling method, three universities from both public and private universities were chosen. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program Version 18.

Results

Total of 282 (94%) questionnaires were returned complete. The number of students from clinical year three, four and five were evenly distributed with 33.3%, 34.8% and 31.9% respectively. 187 students out of 282 (66.31%) students said that research is relevant in their life. The most significant attitude of students towards research is whether they were persuaded by enthusiastic mentor to participate in research. The greatest barriers towards research are lack of funding, difficulty following-up with patients and difficulty obtaining approval.

Conclusion

The results of the research outline the significance in perception and attitude of local university students from both public and private university. The final results disagree with our hypothesis. Overall, medical student from various universities have better positive perception and attitude towards research.