Research attitudes and involvement among medical students and students of allied health occupations

Abstract

Medicine has a long research tradition, whereas allied health areas have only recently become involved in research. Comparisons among students of different health occupation courses on their attitudes to research have not been made. A questionnaire study was conducted to investigate the attitudes to research of a total of 314 students of medicine, dentistry, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and nursing courses on the city campuses of two South Australian universities. There were differences across the courses in the priority to be given to different research areas, in the criteria used to evaluate research articles, in feelings of competence in reading the research literature, and in research involvement. Some differences were also found across groups of students at four year levels of study, for example, higher level students read more professional articles, and participated in more conference activities. These results concur with findings in previous research undertaken in the US and elsewhere. Some minor gender differences were also found. Consideration is given to the implications of the results for education-in-research among students of health occupations.