Students’ awareness of physics application in the medical field

Abstract

To assess students’ awareness of physical sciences’ significance in the medical field and relate this awareness to their academic achievement. A multiple-choice questionnaire was distributed to first- and second-year medical sciences students. The questionnaire consists of four particulars, two questions aimed at assessing the students’ awareness of physics implementation in medical sciences and 12 relatively basic questions designed to measure the participant’s knowledge. A total of 370 eligible students participated in this study (187 unified-track students and 183 nursing-track students). Students showed a higher awareness of familiar applications compared to unfamiliar physics applications. 63.6% of students with high academic achievement (unified-track students) indicated awareness of the importance of studying physics, compared to 34.9% of students with lower academic achievement (nursing-track students). Our results also indicated a slightly weak correlation between students’ awareness and knowledge level (r = 0.251). We found that students’ awareness of the positive impact of studying physics on their professional development varied based on their academic achievement. In general, students displayed a higher ability to recognize physics’ medical applications if introduced to the concept by relating it to its real-life medical application. Conversely, when students were introduced to the topic without relating it to real-life medical applications, we found that they were generally less able to correctly recognize the underlying physics principle.