Abstract:

In México, the most part of undergraduate students, which get enrolled into a health program such as dentistry, fell that science knowledge and scientific method have less priority than acquiring an efficient clinical training. In one hand, dentistry students have been thought for years, that dentistry field is mainly focused to prevent, to diagnose and to plan a treatment. On the other hand, when undergraduate students enroll into a postgraduate degree program they fell incompetent in subjects related to research. Due to it, the objective of this investigation was to asses´ dentistry students´ interest on research and investigation subjects´ at dentistry undergraduate program at the University of Michoacán, in order to evaluate education related to science and research on students. Material and methods involved a questionnaire instrument, in which students give their opinion about obligatory and optional subjects, related to research. Also, it was assessed their critical thinking, related to research teaching/learning, in all grades of the undergraduate dentistry program.

Results evidenced students at the end of the first grade, demanded necessity to course another subject at the second and third grade, related to research. It was obvious that students of the first grade, which have already course redaction and lecture, were trained to read and write, and wanted to develop skills on the construction of a literary essay. Even more, they thought that there was too much time between the first and the fourth grade to revisit research files. This feeling can be explained due to in second and third grade, students do not course any subject related to research, until they course the fourth and fifth grades. Students from the second and third grade, felt comfortable about skipping research subjects, but evidenced the necessity of course and continue their academic research training. Finally, students from fourth and fifth grades felt that research subjects were very important, due to students report clinical cases in congresses.

Students also report that they were quite disappointed with research education, because the mayor part of them graduate by passing a national EGEL-O exam, and were not taking advantage of research coursed subjects during their formation which could lead them to construct a thesis. Evidence showed that actual curricula should be modified at research subject´ programming, but also actual degree modalities should be revised, in order to motivate students to graduate not only by passing an exam, but also by constructing a thesis, a dissertation or by reporting a clinical case.

Keywords:

Research training, education and scientific research, research education in dentistry.