Undergraduate medical students’ perspectives on research education and their confidence in research skills: a cross-sectional study from Palestine

Abstract

Objective: Undergraduate medical research training is fundamental for developing future physicians’ research competencies and promoting evidence-based practice. This study aimed to evaluate Palestinian medical students’ perspectives on the adequacy of research education and examine their confidence in research skills in an attempt to improve research teaching. Methods: A cross-sectional, survey-based study design was used. An anonymous survey, consisting of two newly developed questionnaires that were reviewed by a panel of experts for content relevance and clarity, was used for data collection. After piloting, snowball sampling was used to survey students from 5 out of 7 medical schools in the country. Descriptive analysis and inferential statistics using chi-square tests, independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation tests were used. Results: A total of 633 students participated in this study, representing 5 out of 7 medical schools in the country. The majority of students recognized curricular research training courses and the development of basic research skills as important milestones in their undergraduate education (85.3% and 83.4%, respectively). However, most students believed that they had received inadequate research training, with a mean Students’ Perspectives on the Adequacy of Research Education (SPARE) score of 5.53 (± 2.67) out of 11 (50.3%). Importantly, basics of research and research methodology (46.9%), study design (49.6%), methods of data collection (49.6%), data analysis (44.4%), and academic writing (43%) were reported by the students as key areas that are inadequately covered. Moreover, students reported a low level of confidence in their research skills, with a mean confidence score of 37.38 (± 10.02) out of 70 (53.4%). The SPARE scores were weakly correlated with the Students’ Confidence scores, r = 0.251, 95% CI (0.176 to 0.323). Conclusion: Palestinian medical students highly recognize the importance of research training. However, they feel that the current in-curriculum research training courses are inadequate to enhance their research skills. This study highlighted the pressing need for Palestinian medical schools and others with similar curricula to consider a more efficient curriculum development and delivery to meet students’ needs and improve confidence in their own research skills as future clinicians. Clinical trial number: Not applicable.