Abstract
Background The constant growth of medical scientific knowledge, stronger calls for evidence based medicine and changing roles of physicians are examples for the relevance of teaching scientific principles in undergraduate medical education. The acquisition of scientific skills is comparably weak in undergraduate medical education. This scoping review addresses the following questions: Which examples on teaching scientific principles in undergraduate medical education can be identified in international literature? What is known regarding their educational success and how can they be integrated into undergraduate medical curricula? Methods A systematic scoping review search was conducted in PubMed. Criteria for eligibility were English or German language, publication in a peer-reviewed journal, publication date after 1 st of January 2000 and the publications had to report educational interventions in undergraduate medical education on one of the following basic scientific principles: searching literature, formulating scientific questions, reading and critical appraisal of literature, writing, presentation and understanding of the research process. After full-text screening, 29 studies were included in the analysis. Results Educational interventions focused on literature search (N=14), critical appraisal of scientific publications (N=13) and the formulation of scientific questions (N=13). Evaluation data were included in 16 publications. Outcomes included measures of student satisfaction, student knowledge and scientific competence based on tested instruments. Results were quite heterogeneous regarding the success of educational interventions. Conclusions Publications in this field of medical education vary considerably regarding reporting of results and inclusion of evaluation data, making a comprehensive analysis of the educational interventions a difficult task. Nevertheless, some ideas for the implementation of scientific principles in undergraduate medical education can be named. Student knowledge of and student attitude towards scientific principles in medical education can be fostered by integrating different didactic approaches, by including self-study time and by integrating these principles vertically in undergraduate medical curricula along with clinical aspects.
Teaching scientific principles in undergraduate medical education – a scoping review on international examples