Introduction.

Medical schools have implemented curricular strategies to develop research competencies. In Latin America, few studies have evaluated the acquisition of research skills within a curricular framework.

Objective.

To describe the satisfaction and perceptions of medical students at a private university in Lima, Peru, who are undergoing a curricular strategy focused on developing research competencies.

Methods.

We conducted a cross-sectional study using a self-administered online questionnaire. The strategy includes two components: research-oriented teaching and research-based teaching. The satisfaction was measured using a 10-point scale, and perceptions were evaluated using a Likert Scale. We measured the final scores of the items and compared them.

Results.

We included 273 students. For the research-oriented component, the median overall satisfaction was 7 in the first two courses and 8 in the last three. Overall satisfaction in the research-based courses ranged from 5 for clinical medicine to 9 for parasitology. There was a trend of higher perception scores (more favorable) with higher academic years (K = 14,3; p = 0,007) in the research-oriented component. In the research-based component, the epidemiology course had the highest median score, while no differences were found between Thesis I and II.

Conclusions.

In theoretical courses, satisfaction and perception improve with higher academic years. However, in courses that develop a research product, students’ reactions were heterogeneous.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )