Effectiveness of Workshop on Basic Research Skill Development among First Year Postgraduate Medical Students of a Private University in South Karnataka, India

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on “Basic Research Skill Development”, conducted for newly admitted post graduate medical students of a private university from Mangalore, South Karnataka, India. Method: With a participatory approach, 2 days workshop (in July 2011) was organized for basic research skills development among 57 freshly admitted medical postgraduates. Based on the sessions, predesigned, structured tool (with 39 questions -MCQ or True / false type) was prepared. Initially, participants were exposed to Pretest to record prior knowledge. At the end of workshop Post-test was done with same tool. Data was analysed using McNemar chi square paired-t tests by SPSS version17. P 0.05 was considered to be significant. Result: Forty four postgraduates willing to participate in this study were involved. Paired t test showed increased research knowledge skills significantly (p 0.0005, Mean diff SD= 6.227). Post-test showed higher number of correct responses for all questions except one. Significantly higher level of correct answers (p 0.0005) were observed in questions -- Boolean operators in Literature search, Hierarchy of study designs, Nested Case control study, Examples of epidemiological studies, Cross-sectional study, Full form of SPSS. Conclusion: A positive findings of summative evaluation of “Basic Research Skill Development” workshop held at the beginning of postgraduate medical courses, justifies the need for such workshop for every medical school.