Research Knowledge and Skills Among Medical and Allied Health Students Attending a Summer Research Course: A Pretest and Posttest Analysis

Abstract

Introduction This study assessed the impact of a summer research training course on the knowledge levels and skills of medical and allied health students. Methods A one group pretest-posttest quasi-experiment study was conducted during a summer research course at King Fahad Medical City, Saudi Arabia. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among course participants twice, on the first day (pretest) and the last day of the course (posttest). The questionnaire consisted of four sections: study design, literature review, formulation of a research question, and biostatistics. Results A total of 44 participants were included in the study, of whom 27 (61.4%) were medical students. The overall mean score of correct responses of the participants was 17.70+/-4.00 in the pretest compared to 22.18+/-6.64 in the posttest (p<0.001). The mean score of the correct responses of the participants in the "study design" pretest section was (4.23+/-1.51) compared to (10.23 +/- 3.71) in the posttest, (p<0.001). While for the literature review section, the mean score of the correct responses in the pretest was (2.20+/-1.19) and (2.77+/-1.34) in the posttest, (p=0.027). Moreover, our results revealed that all participants (100%) were able to execute all the steps of a research project and 6 (13.64%) participants were able to submit papers for publication. Conclusions Our results showed that a research training program might enhance research knowledge and skills in terms of the successful accomplishment of relevant assessment tasks among medical and allied health students.