Abstract:

The subject of History of Science plays an important role in learning about the procedures related to the understanding of scientific thought and the effective search for information. The study of Medicine therefore includes a history of health and of medical mentalities from the social context together with documentary methods. As a consequence, among the purposes of the subject is the encouragement to learn basic, transversal and specific skills that cover the social, interpersonal, personal and professional areas.
Following a theoretical framework based on teaching by competencies, a research-action project was designed for the Medical degree course at the University of Cadiz, with the tile “The biography of a Cadiz doctor”. The course in which the experiment was implemented is “The History of Medicine. Theory and Method in Health Sciences”, during the year 2019-2020, with 145 students taking part. The aim of the project is to develop transversal competencies focusing on the effective command of the search for scientific information.
The students had a database of eminent doctors associated with the province of Cadiz, drawn up by local professors, which initially included 140 eminent doctors from the province of Cadiz. After selecting a doctor the students studied his/her biography, which had to include a timeline containing major features of the doctor’s life, the social and political context in which he/she lived as a doctor, describing the scientific and historic, philosophical and social atmosphere of the time, his/her medical training, contributions made to science and civil society, relationships with contemporaries and the social significance of his/her standing as a doctor or scientist. The students’ presentations were in free format (short video, “draw my life”, role-playing, classic monographic work, etc.) and they were used to educate the group and in turn for a discussion of the processes of transmitting information and ideas.
Current scientific literature has shown the importance of motivation and emotion in students' learning from a social perspective. In this way, the biographical method and local history were used to stimulate and generate emotions of identity in the students that help them progress in documentary procedures. The analysis of this hypothesis was performed by collecting information on the influence of variable emotion in the development of the project through a Likert-type scale. The results of a hetero-evaluation through ethnographic interviews and a co-assessment using the university’s virtual campus tool enable the suitability and appropriateness of the project to be assessed.

Keywords:

History of Science, History of Medicine, Biographies, Documentary methods, Science education.