Early scientific research training links to the innovation ability of medical undergraduates and postgraduates: a qualitative and quantitative survey

Early scientific research training links to the innovation ability of medical undergraduates and postgraduates: a qualitative and quantitative survey | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Early scientific research training links to the innovation ability of medical undergraduates and postgraduates: a qualitative and quantitative survey Boyang Wang, Lulu Yang, Zhaohui Gong This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4127631/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Background Scientific research training (SRT) in basic medical sciences and clinical sciences plays critical roles in the development of clinical skills and innovation ability. We aimed to explore the current status of SRT in both medical undergraduates and postgraduates, and the relationship between early SRT and innovation ability in medical students. Methods We designed two questionnaires for undergraduates and postgraduates respectively to investigate the understanding, and participation of SRT, the motivations and factors for engaging in research, the advisor’s guidance of SRT, the academic performance of SRT, and the assessment of research conditions and suggestions for SRT. The questionnaire survey was conducted on 108 undergraduates and 86 postgraduates at Ningbo University. Then we collected data and analysed it with descriptive statistics. Results The results showed that undergraduates had more interest, understanding, and requirements for scientific research. Understanding of SRT in undergraduates (81.26%) was higher than that in postgraduates (56.97%). More than 70% of undergraduates had research experience in the early grades and the average time participating in SRT was more than one year. Participating in SRT in undergraduates (first and second year of undergraduate) was earlier than that in postgraduates (first year of postgraduate). In particular, personal interest was the major motivation for engaging in SRT. The vast majority of postgraduates (89.53%) had higher research goals than undergraduates (75%). These specific goals led to much higher research gains. Additionally, postgraduates (90.7%) could receive more higher proportion of guidance than undergraduates (67.59%), and thus higher academic performance (15.12% vs. 2.78%). Interestingly, most students were satisfied with the lab conditions and their personal efforts were primarily to achieve better academic performance. Conclusions These findings indicated that early SRT is strongly linked to the innovation ability of medical students, suggesting a necessity to construct an early extracurricular SRT program to train more future clinician-scientists and to improve the quality of medical education. Scientific research training Undergraduate Postgraduate Innovation ability Medical education Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Background As the most mainstream program, 5-year medical bachelor's degree program is the basis of medical education system in China[ 1 ]. It is designed for training qualified practicing doctors, and usually includes basic and clinical medicine courses and internships. Graduates can take the National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE) 1 year after participating in clinical work at medical institutions. The 5-year medical students need to complete 3 years of standardized residency training before they become doctors. However, this type of medical program is lack of scientific research training (SRT) in China. In other developing countries, although SRT during medical education was still less frequent than expected, most of the students were interested in research activities[ 2 ]. Even for graduate students, SRT awards afforded students an opportunity to develop research and methodologic skills and achieve student-centered outcomes. These awards built their capacity as future researchers by both empowering them and increasing their confidence in research[ 3 ]. The development of an integrated international program in clinical, basic, and methodological training provided medical students with an opportunity to learn about differences in health care and medical education between different countries[ 4 ]. SRT in basic medical sciences and clinical sciences plays critical roles in the development of clinical skills and innovation ability, Thus more high-level clinicians empowered with knowledge, skills and innovation ability, should be trained to improve the health services. Similar to clinical research in other countries,, more and more Chinese clinicians are engaging in scientific research in addition to clinical work[ 5 ]. However, most Chinese clinicians had not received systematic SRT during the period of their medical education[ 1 ]. There is an urgent need to improve the innovation ability of clinician scientists. Revitalizing the ideal of the clinician-scientist-teacher might help in the training of the next generation of translational researchers[ 6 ]. To bridge the gap in innovation ability between clinicians and scientists, it’s necessary to connect basic research to translational medicine for medical students[ 7 ]. SRT was the most popular training program for medical students on the innovation ability of scientific research[ 8 , 9 ]. Since SRT began, different outcomes had been achieved, such as academic publications, inventions and patents, clinical applications, etc. As one of the main strategies that are promoting the innovation ability for medical students, early SRT has been implemented at Ningbo University Health Science Center since 2010. However, the exact relationship between early SRT and the innovation ability of medical students remains unknown. The aims of this study are to explore (1) the situation of SRT in undergraduates and postgraduates at Ningbo University, and (2) the relationship between early SRT and innovation ability in medical students. A complete and reliable questionnaire survey was conducted. By analysing the collected data, we found that understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates. In addition, participating in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates. The vast majority of postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates, and specific goals for research led to more gains. More frequent guidance benefited students to achieve higher academic performance and personal effort was the primary factor affecting academic performance and thus innovation ability. These findings demonstrate the wider implementation of SRT during medical education, and the success of SRT in training medical students can become a linchpin for training future generations of clinician scientists. Methods Study design We conducted a cross-sectional, descriptive study on scientific research and innovation ability of medical students by surveying undergraduates and postgraduates at Ningbo University Health Science Center from December 2022 to January 2023. This study was approved by the institutional review board at Ningbo University Health Science Center (IRB no. NBU-20221205). Questionnaire design We designed two different questionnaires for undergraduates and postgraduates (Supplemental Material), respectively. The main questions focused on (1) the understanding of SRT, (2) the participation of SRT, (2) the motivations and factors for engaging in research, (3) the advisor’s guidance of SRT, (4) the academic performance of SRT, (5) the assessment of research conditions, and (6) the assessments and suggestions for SRT. Participants and setting The questionnaire survey was conducted by research group on students' scientific research and innovation ability at Ningbo University Health Science Center. Undergraduates from first-year to fifth-year, and postgraduates from first-year to third-year received a WeChat invitation with a link, nonresponders received up to 3 follow-up WeChat invitations.. Data collection The result of survey was automatically recorded by the online WeChat questionnaire survey system. After the deadline, we downloaded the original data from the system and collected manually valid data. The completeness, accuracy and consistency of the collected data was confirmed by three different independent investigators. Data analysis We used descriptive statistics to characterize responses for all questions. The data analyses were performed using SPSS 13.0 software. Results Understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates To find out the real situation of understanding of research in medical students, we recruited some volunteers from undergraduates and postgraduates in different grades at Ningbo University and conducted the survey on scientific research and innovation ability. Among the valid respondents (108 undergraduates vs. 86 postgraduates), 9.26% of undergraduates knew research very well and 75% of undergraduates knew research (Fig. 1 A). In contrast, only 1.16% of postgraduates knew research very well and 55.81% of postgraduates knew research (Fig. 1 B). Thus, the understanding of research in undergraduates was much higher than that in postgraduates (81.26% vs. 56.97%). In addition, the vast majority of undergraduates (88.89%) and postgraduates (90.69%) showed their interest in research (Fig. 1 C, D). Interestingly, most of undergraduates (80.56%) thought the research was beneficial to their professional learning (Fig. 1 E). Similarly, 84.26% of undergraduates recognized that early scientific training would benefit their academic abilities (Fig. 1 F). For undergraduates, the most required capability was reading literature, followed by analyzing and solving problems (Fig. 1 G). These results indicated that undergraduates had more interest, understanding and requirements for scientific research. Participating in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates To further investigate whether the mentioned interest and requirements affect their actions, we compared their research experience. Among the valid postgraduate respondents, 31.4% of postgraduates showed they had experience for research when they studied at college as undergraduates (Fig. 2 A). More than half (59.3%) of postgraduates started to do research work from the first year of postgraduates (Fig. 2 B). However, for the undergraduates, 48.15% of first-year and 21.3% of second-year students participated in research (Fig. 2 C). Interestingly, 52.78% of undergraduates participated in research by the way of SRTP, and 37.04% of undergraduates did by the way of contest, such as “Challenge Cup” competition, basic medical sciences and clinical medicine competitions (Fig. 2 D). For their research projects, 34.26% of them were advisor-funded and 27.78% of them were advisor-consulted, only a very low proportion (5.56%) of them were self-designed (Fig. 2 E). Additionally, almost one third of undergraduates had more than 12 months of research experience (Fig. 2 F). Together, more than 70% of undergraduates had the research experience in the early grades and the average time participating in research was more than one year. Specific goals for research led to more gains For the main motivations for undergraduates to engage in research, the results showed that personal interest is primary, and innovation credit, awards/honors, or graduate entrance are the other motivations (Fig. 3 A). Given that the motivation is related to a specific goal, 39.81% of undergraduates were purposeful, and 35.19% of them had no specific goals (Fig. 3 B). Whereas, 47.67% of postgraduates were purposeful, and 41.86% of them had no specific goals (Fig. 3 C). To investigate the research goals whether lead to research gains, we compared the main gains from research both in undergraduates and postgraduates. For undergraduates, the top 3 gains from research were: increased awareness of medicine (63.89%), increased independence of research (59.26%), and recognized individual limitations (50.93%) (Fig. 3 D). For postgraduates, similar results were found when they were asked the same questions (Fig. 3 E). Only a very small portion of undergraduates (2.78%) and postgraduates (5.81%) indicated they had no gains from research (Fig. 3 D, E). These results indicated that personal interest was the major motivation for engaging in research. The vast majority of postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates. These specific goals led to much higher research gains. More frequent guidance benefited students to achieve higher academic performance We surveyed the relationship between advisors’ guidance and academic performance, the results showed that most of undergraduate advisors guided the research frequently and constantly (Fig. 4 A), and postgraduates received a higher proportion of advisors’ guidance (Fig. 4 B). Consistent with this, only 2.78% of undergraduates received first author-papers/patents/awards (Fig. 4 C), while 15.12% of undergraduates received first author-academic performance (Fig. 4 D). Although similar proportion of undergraduates (12.97%) and postgraduates (12.63%) were preparing the first-/non-first-academic performance, postgraduates received higher first-author academic performance than undergraduates (15.12% vs. 2.78%, Fig. 4 C, D). These findings showed that postgraduates received more higher proportion of guidance, and thus higher academic performance. Personal effort was the primary factor affecting academic performance To investigate what kinds of factors affect academic achievements, we surveyed and compared different factors, such as advisor’s ability, research hardware and cultural conditions. The data showed that more than half of students (53.49%) believed that personal effort was the most important factor (Fig. 5 A). Sequentially, advisor’s ability was the next factor to affect academic performance. In all of the valid responses, the advisor’s level evaluated as “High” and “Medium” was 67.44% and 26.74%, respectively (Fig. 5 B). In general, the hardware and cultural conditions are critical to research. The results indicated that both undergraduates and postgraduates had high satisfaction on hardware conditions. Only a very small proportion of undergraduates (4.63%) and postgraduates (5.81%) thought the hardware condition was poor (Fig. 5 C, D). Interestingly, both undergraduates and postgraduates showed greater satisfaction on cultural conditions than on hardware conditions (Fig. 5 E, F). These findings showed that most students were satisfied with the lab conditions and their personal efforts were primary to achieve better academic performance. Discussion Our previous work showed that the early SRT benefited undergraduate medical students in both academical and non-academical achievements[ 10 ]. However, the postgraduate and undergraduate programs are totally different in Chinese medical education system. The influence of early SRT on the innovation ability of both undergraduate and postgraduate medical students remains unclear. This work explored the situation of SRT in undergraduates and postgraduates and the relationship between early SRT and innovation ability in medical students. We found that participating in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates (Fig. 2 B, C). More frequent guidance benefited students to achieve higher academic performance and personal effort was the primary factor affecting academic performance and thus innovation ability (Fig. 4 , 5 ). Medical research is of high value to clinician scientist. The integration of scientific research into medical education has been documented to have translated into skills valuable to future clinical practice. Teaching medical research to medical students by basic research skills curricula and longitudinal application of research skills was the main strategy[ 11 ]. However, there was lack of incorporating professional curricula into medical research for undergraduates in China. Even though they have strong interests and motivations, only a few undergraduates enrolled in research[ 10 , 12 ]. Most Chinese medical undergraduates participated in scientific research through SRT spontaneously. Since student research training program was initiated at Tsinghua University in 1996, SRT program became a principal approach for college students to improve their skills and ability to innovate. As a result, both academic and non-academic performance of medical undergraduates were significantly improved by planned SRT program[ 10 , 13 ]. Thus, early SRT program played an important role in promoting scientific performance and innovation ability of undergraduates. Unlike undergraduates, Chinese medical postgraduates participated in scientific research impulsively. To obtain a Master of Medicine, the vast majority of postgraduates need to do research work and publish scientific papers[ 1 , 14 ]. Consistent with this, although our findings indicated understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates, postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates (Fig. 3 ). These specific goals led to much higher academic performance and linked to the requirements for holding a degree. To build postgraduate capacity, a research training award for graduate students was piloted with the intent of providing a research-intensive experiential learning opportunity that would contribute to graduate students' future roles as clinician scientists. The graduate student research training awards afforded postgraduates an opportunity to develop research and methodologic skills and achieve student-centered outcomes[ 3 ]. Our findings revealed that postgraduates received more higher proportion of guidance, and thus higher academic performance (Fig. 4 ). The SRT not only built postgraduates’ capacity as clinician scientists, but also increased their confidence in research. The long-term effects of extracurricular scientific research on undergraduate students showed that the students benefited from participating in extracurricular research, by acquiring the ability to think scientifically and enhancing their communication skills. In addition, the medical students were motivated to enlist for postgraduate studies so that they could further embark in scientific research[ 15 ]. Our findings indicated that more than 70% of undergraduates had the research experience in the early grades and the average time participating in research was more than one year (Fig. 2 ). To improve the quality of education, different strategies had been employed during the processes of medical education[ 16 , 17 ]. Not only a planned SRT program would benefit research productivity to medical students, but also an early SRT program strengthened the research skills of medical undergraduates and motivated them to pursue research[ 10 , 18 ]. In addition, the international collaborative training programs had important impact on medical students’ research ability[ 19 ]. Hence, the design of a structured SRT program is critical for enhancing innovation ability of medical students. Our results showed that most of the research projects were advisor-funded and advisor-consulted, only a very few projects were self-designed by students (Fig. 2 ). This implied that advisor’s guidance was critical for academic performance. In fact, our findings showed that postgraduates received more higher proportion of guidance, and thus higher academic performance. The motivations for clinical research participation were usually linked to different benefits[ 20 ]. For engaging in research at Ningbo University, medical students responded that the primary factor was their personal interest. This primary motivation resulted in increased awareness of medicine, independence of research, and recognized individual limitations (Fig. 3 ). Even though it’s well known that the research environments were extremely important for research outputs[ 21 ], our findings showed personal effort was the most important factor affecting academic achievements. It has been reported that the undergraduate research experience significantly influenced their desire to pursue an occupation relating to science after graduation[ 22 ]. For medical students, the research participation linked to gained academic performance, improved knowledge, and planned individual development[ 23 ]. Conclusions The findings of this work indicated that understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates, and engaging in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates. Whereas postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates, and these specific goals led to much higher academic performance. Hence, these findings indicated that early SRT strongly linked to innovation ability of medical students. It is a necessary to construct an early extracurricular SRT program to train more future clinician scientists, and to improve the quality of medical education. Abbreviations NMLE National Medical Licensing Examination SRT Scientific Research Training Declarations Acknowledgements The authors appreciate medical undergraduates and postgraduates at Ningbo University Health Science Center for their participating in anonymous surveys and feedback sessions, Mrs Min Zhang, student counsellor at Ningbo University Health Science Center, for her assisting in questionnaire survey. Author contributions BW, LY, and ZG contributed to the development of the study, analysis, and interpretation of the data, writing, reviewing, and finalizing of the manuscript. ZG participated in the study conceptualization, analysed the data, and critically revised the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript. Funding The work was supported by the “14th Five-Year Plan” Teaching Reform Project of General Undergraduate Universities in Zhejiang Province (No. jg20220176), and the K.C.Wong Magna Fund at Ningbo University. Data availability The data is presented in the figures. Readers seeking access to any of the raw data may contact the corresponding author on reasonable request, Zhaohui Gong: [email protected] Ethical approval and consent to participate This study was approved by the Ethical Review Board of Ningbo University Health Science Center (IRB no. NBU-20221205). Students were ensured of confidentiality and provided signed informed consent. Consent to publish No individual’s data are included in this study. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. References Liu X, Feng J, Liu C, Chu R, Lv M, Zhong N, Tang Y, Li L, Song K. Medical Education Systems in China: Development, Status, and Evaluation. 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Medical Student Research: An Integrated Mixed-Methods Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLoS ONE 2015, 10(6). Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SupplementalMaterial.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4127631","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":284155903,"identity":"bd687e3d-5733-4db7-8072-fed795b789bd","order_by":0,"name":"Boyang Wang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Ningbo University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Boyang","middleName":"","lastName":"Wang","suffix":""},{"id":284155904,"identity":"dac69769-2cf9-4bbf-bc01-adfa45a60e23","order_by":1,"name":"Lulu Yang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Ningbo University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Lulu","middleName":"","lastName":"Yang","suffix":""},{"id":284155905,"identity":"dbe28d38-7e5e-42bc-8816-9ce365ee4cf6","order_by":2,"name":"Zhaohui Gong","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA60lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYLACxgYGBgMGxsYHIAYDQwLxWpoNSNXCwCZBlBZ5997DL3/usJMzl0huqy7ccZiBnz3HgOHnDtxaDM+cS7OQPJNsbDkjse32zDOHGSR73hgw9p7Bo2VGjpmBYRtz4oYbQC28bYcZDG7kGDAzthHQkthWD9ZSDNJiT0iLvESO8YODbYfBWpjBtkgQ0GLAc8aMsbHtuLHBmYfN0rxn0nkkzjwrONiLz5b2HuOPP9uq5QyOpz/8zLvDWo6/PXnjg5/4bDkAjA5kAR4QcQC3BqAtDQzMH/ApGAWjYBSMglHAAAB+tVVNIU+9ygAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Ningbo University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zhaohui","middleName":"","lastName":"Gong","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-03-19 06:05:03","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4127631/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4127631/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":53590145,"identity":"708b9116-24eb-4a80-b0fa-d4ebcc5c3f9c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-27 19:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":142173,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eCurrent understanding of research among medical undergraduates and postgraduates. Understanding of research in medical undergraduates (A) , and in medical postgraduates (B). The interest in research in medical undergraduates (C) , and in medical postgraduates (D). (E) Is research beneficial to learning in medical undergraduates. (F) Will early scientific training benefit academic ability in medical undergraduates. (G) The required capabilities for research in medical undergraduates.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/6b1860670cdda246b46d8c0e.png"},{"id":53590142,"identity":"7f5fbcd3-ca41-40e9-88e6-128a929ef70a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-27 19:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":117969,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe status of participating in research among medical students.(A) Whether to engage in research. (B) Time participated in research in postgraduates. (C) Time participated in research in undergraduates. (D) The ways to participate in research in medical undergraduates. SRTP, scientific research training program. (E) The sources of research projects in medical undergraduates. (F) Total time for research in medical undergraduates.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/9032420140a18f95f5402f6a.png"},{"id":53590143,"identity":"d1f3a4ff-99e3-4dc0-bbdf-65d6904ea07f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-27 19:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":117710,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe motivations, goals, and gains for research. (A) Motivations for engaging in research. Research goals in medical undergraduates (B), and in medical postgraduates (C). Gains from research in medical undergraduates (D), and in medical postgraduates (E).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/8cbd225362aaaea81e4427ad.png"},{"id":53590146,"identity":"1f7e3f2c-c0ab-41eb-a6a9-fb9845e0ac8d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-27 19:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":119932,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe guidance and academic performance of research. Advisors’ guidance in medical undergraduates (A), and in medical postgraduates (B). Academic performance (papers/patents/awards etc.) in medical undergraduates (C) , and in medical postgraduates (D).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/30b8a51adaf6e8983b75075d.png"},{"id":53590147,"identity":"15473ce1-f66d-483f-b1b7-486ff57838b1","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-27 19:55:26","extension":"png","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":151171,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe subjective assessment of research experience. (A) Factors affecting academic achievements. (B) The assessment of advisor’s level. The assessment of research hardware conditions in medical undergraduates (C), and in medical postgraduates (D). The assessment of research cultural conditions in medical undergraduates (E), and in medical postgraduates (F).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"Onlinefloatimage5.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/4e36edb434fa0911e658e176.png"},{"id":57327174,"identity":"0b432563-75f7-4495-bda2-5ded5942f411","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-05-29 07:32:09","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1479993,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/4fd28ed0-c295-4c1f-a759-b1b5036f7ea9.pdf"},{"id":53590144,"identity":"c132bc20-1c59-4537-bc2f-9403f838170f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-03-27 19:55:26","extension":"pdf","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":197818,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SupplementalMaterial.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4127631/v1/e7f13a0fbddb8d4a6a87061e.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Early scientific research training links to the innovation ability of medical undergraduates and postgraduates: a qualitative and quantitative survey","fulltext":[{"header":"Background","content":"\u003cp\u003eAs the most mainstream program, 5-year medical bachelor's degree program is the basis of medical education system in China[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e]. It is designed for training qualified practicing doctors, and usually includes basic and clinical medicine courses and internships. Graduates can take the National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE) 1 year after participating in clinical work at medical institutions. The 5-year medical students need to complete 3 years of standardized residency training before they become doctors. However, this type of medical program is lack of scientific research training (SRT) in China. In other developing countries, although SRT during medical education was still less frequent than expected, most of the students were interested in research activities[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e]. Even for graduate students, SRT awards afforded students an opportunity to develop research and methodologic skills and achieve student-centered outcomes. These awards built their capacity as future researchers by both empowering them and increasing their confidence in research[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e]. The development of an integrated international program in clinical, basic, and methodological training provided medical students with an opportunity to learn about differences in health care and medical education between different countries[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e]. SRT in basic medical sciences and clinical sciences plays critical roles in the development of clinical skills and innovation ability, Thus more high-level clinicians empowered with knowledge, skills and innovation ability, should be trained to improve the health services.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSimilar to clinical research in other countries,, more and more Chinese clinicians are engaging in scientific research in addition to clinical work[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e]. However, most Chinese clinicians had not received systematic SRT during the period of their medical education[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e]. There is an urgent need to improve the innovation ability of clinician scientists. Revitalizing the ideal of the clinician-scientist-teacher might help in the training of the next generation of translational researchers[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e]. To bridge the gap in innovation ability between clinicians and scientists, it\u0026rsquo;s necessary to connect basic research to translational medicine for medical students[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e]. SRT was the most popular training program for medical students on the innovation ability of scientific research[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e8\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e9\u003c/span\u003e]. Since SRT began, different outcomes had been achieved, such as academic publications, inventions and patents, clinical applications, etc. As one of the main strategies that are promoting the innovation ability for medical students, early SRT has been implemented at Ningbo University Health Science Center since 2010. However, the exact relationship between early SRT and the innovation ability of medical students remains unknown.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe aims of this study are to explore (1) the situation of SRT in undergraduates and postgraduates at Ningbo University, and (2) the relationship between early SRT and innovation ability in medical students. A complete and reliable questionnaire survey was conducted. By analysing the collected data, we found that understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates. In addition, participating in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates. The vast majority of postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates, and specific goals for research led to more gains. More frequent guidance benefited students to achieve higher academic performance and personal effort was the primary factor affecting academic performance and thus innovation ability. These findings demonstrate the wider implementation of SRT during medical education, and the success of SRT in training medical students can become a linchpin for training future generations of clinician scientists.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eStudy design\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe conducted a cross-sectional, descriptive study on scientific research and innovation ability of medical students by surveying undergraduates and postgraduates at Ningbo University Health Science Center from December 2022 to January 2023. This study was approved by the institutional review board at Ningbo University Health Science Center (IRB no. NBU-20221205).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eQuestionnaire design\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe designed two different questionnaires for undergraduates and postgraduates (Supplemental Material), respectively. The main questions focused on (1) the understanding of SRT, (2) the participation of SRT, (2) the motivations and factors for engaging in research, (3) the advisor\u0026rsquo;s guidance of SRT, (4) the academic performance of SRT, (5) the assessment of research conditions, and (6) the assessments and suggestions for SRT.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eParticipants and setting\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe questionnaire survey was conducted by research group on students' scientific research and innovation ability at Ningbo University Health Science Center. Undergraduates from first-year to fifth-year, and postgraduates from first-year to third-year received a WeChat invitation with a link, nonresponders received up to 3 follow-up WeChat invitations..\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eData collection\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe result of survey was automatically recorded by the online WeChat questionnaire survey system. After the deadline, we downloaded the original data from the system and collected manually valid data. The completeness, accuracy and consistency of the collected data was confirmed by three different independent investigators.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eData analysis\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe used descriptive statistics to characterize responses for all questions. The data analyses were performed using SPSS 13.0 software.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eUnderstanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo find out the real situation of understanding of research in medical students, we recruited some volunteers from undergraduates and postgraduates in different grades at Ningbo University and conducted the survey on scientific research and innovation ability. Among the valid respondents (108 undergraduates vs. 86 postgraduates), 9.26% of undergraduates knew research very well and 75% of undergraduates knew research (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003eA). In contrast, only 1.16% of postgraduates knew research very well and 55.81% of postgraduates knew research (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003eB). Thus, the understanding of research in undergraduates was much higher than that in postgraduates (81.26% vs. 56.97%). In addition, the vast majority of undergraduates (88.89%) and postgraduates (90.69%) showed their interest in research (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003eC, D). Interestingly, most of undergraduates (80.56%) thought the research was beneficial to their professional learning (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003eE). Similarly, 84.26% of undergraduates recognized that early scientific training would benefit their academic abilities (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003eF). For undergraduates, the most required capability was reading literature, followed by analyzing and solving problems (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003eG). These results indicated that undergraduates had more interest, understanding and requirements for scientific research.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eParticipating in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo further investigate whether the mentioned interest and requirements affect their actions, we compared their research experience. Among the valid postgraduate respondents, 31.4% of postgraduates showed they had experience for research when they studied at college as undergraduates (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eA). More than half (59.3%) of postgraduates started to do research work from the first year of postgraduates (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eB). However, for the undergraduates, 48.15% of first-year and 21.3% of second-year students participated in research (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eC). Interestingly, 52.78% of undergraduates participated in research by the way of SRTP, and 37.04% of undergraduates did by the way of contest, such as \u0026ldquo;Challenge Cup\u0026rdquo; competition, basic medical sciences and clinical medicine competitions (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eD). For their research projects, 34.26% of them were advisor-funded and 27.78% of them were advisor-consulted, only a very low proportion (5.56%) of them were self-designed (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eE). Additionally, almost one third of undergraduates had more than 12 months of research experience (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eF). Together, more than 70% of undergraduates had the research experience in the early grades and the average time participating in research was more than one year.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eSpecific goals for research led to more gains\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor the main motivations for undergraduates to engage in research, the results showed that personal interest is primary, and innovation credit, awards/honors, or graduate entrance are the other motivations (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003eA). Given that the motivation is related to a specific goal, 39.81% of undergraduates were purposeful, and 35.19% of them had no specific goals (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003eB). Whereas, 47.67% of postgraduates were purposeful, and 41.86% of them had no specific goals (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003eC). To investigate the research goals whether lead to research gains, we compared the main gains from research both in undergraduates and postgraduates. For undergraduates, the top 3 gains from research were: increased awareness of medicine (63.89%), increased independence of research (59.26%), and recognized individual limitations (50.93%) (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003eD). For postgraduates, similar results were found when they were asked the same questions (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003eE). Only a very small portion of undergraduates (2.78%) and postgraduates (5.81%) indicated they had no gains from research (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003eD, E). These results indicated that personal interest was the major motivation for engaging in research. The vast majority of postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates. These specific goals led to much higher research gains.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eMore frequent guidance benefited students to achieve higher academic performance\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe surveyed the relationship between advisors\u0026rsquo; guidance and academic performance, the results showed that most of undergraduate advisors guided the research frequently and constantly (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003eA), and postgraduates received a higher proportion of advisors\u0026rsquo; guidance (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003eB). Consistent with this, only 2.78% of undergraduates received first author-papers/patents/awards (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003eC), while 15.12% of undergraduates received first author-academic performance (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003eD). Although similar proportion of undergraduates (12.97%) and postgraduates (12.63%) were preparing the first-/non-first-academic performance, postgraduates received higher first-author academic performance than undergraduates (15.12% vs. 2.78%, Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003eC, D). These findings showed that postgraduates received more higher proportion of guidance, and thus higher academic performance.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003ePersonal effort was the primary factor affecting academic performance\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo investigate what kinds of factors affect academic achievements, we surveyed and compared different factors, such as advisor\u0026rsquo;s ability, research hardware and cultural conditions. The data showed that more than half of students (53.49%) believed that personal effort was the most important factor (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003eA). Sequentially, advisor\u0026rsquo;s ability was the next factor to affect academic performance. In all of the valid responses, the advisor\u0026rsquo;s level evaluated as \u0026ldquo;High\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Medium\u0026rdquo; was 67.44% and 26.74%, respectively (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003eB). In general, the hardware and cultural conditions are critical to research. The results indicated that both undergraduates and postgraduates had high satisfaction on hardware conditions. Only a very small proportion of undergraduates (4.63%) and postgraduates (5.81%) thought the hardware condition was poor (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003eC, D). Interestingly, both undergraduates and postgraduates showed greater satisfaction on cultural conditions than on hardware conditions (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003eE, F). These findings showed that most students were satisfied with the lab conditions and their personal efforts were primary to achieve better academic performance.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eOur previous work showed that the early SRT benefited undergraduate medical students in both academical and non-academical achievements[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e]. However, the postgraduate and undergraduate programs are totally different in Chinese medical education system. The influence of early SRT on the innovation ability of both undergraduate and postgraduate medical students remains unclear. This work explored the situation of SRT in undergraduates and postgraduates and the relationship between early SRT and innovation ability in medical students. We found that participating in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003eB, C). More frequent guidance benefited students to achieve higher academic performance and personal effort was the primary factor affecting academic performance and thus innovation ability (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMedical research is of high value to clinician scientist. The integration of scientific research into medical education has been documented to have translated into skills valuable to future clinical practice. Teaching medical research to medical students by basic research skills curricula and longitudinal application of research skills was the main strategy[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e11\u003c/span\u003e]. However, there was lack of incorporating professional curricula into medical research for undergraduates in China. Even though they have strong interests and motivations, only a few undergraduates enrolled in research[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e12\u003c/span\u003e]. Most Chinese medical undergraduates participated in scientific research through SRT spontaneously. Since student research training program was initiated at Tsinghua University in 1996, SRT program became a principal approach for college students to improve their skills and ability to innovate. As a result, both academic and non-academic performance of medical undergraduates were significantly improved by planned SRT program[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e13\u003c/span\u003e]. Thus, early SRT program played an important role in promoting scientific performance and innovation ability of undergraduates.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUnlike undergraduates, Chinese medical postgraduates participated in scientific research impulsively. To obtain a Master of Medicine, the vast majority of postgraduates need to do research work and publish scientific papers[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e14\u003c/span\u003e]. Consistent with this, although our findings indicated understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates, postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). These specific goals led to much higher academic performance and linked to the requirements for holding a degree. To build postgraduate capacity, a research training award for graduate students was piloted with the intent of providing a research-intensive experiential learning opportunity that would contribute to graduate students' future roles as clinician scientists. The graduate student research training awards afforded postgraduates an opportunity to develop research and methodologic skills and achieve student-centered outcomes[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e]. Our findings revealed that postgraduates received more higher proportion of guidance, and thus higher academic performance (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e). The SRT not only built postgraduates\u0026rsquo; capacity as clinician scientists, but also increased their confidence in research.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e The long-term effects of extracurricular scientific research on undergraduate students showed that the students benefited from participating in extracurricular research, by acquiring the ability to think scientifically and enhancing their communication skills. In addition, the medical students were motivated to enlist for postgraduate studies so that they could further embark in scientific research[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e15\u003c/span\u003e]. Our findings indicated that more than 70% of undergraduates had the research experience in the early grades and the average time participating in research was more than one year (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e). To improve the quality of education, different strategies had been employed during the processes of medical education[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e16\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e17\u003c/span\u003e]. Not only a planned SRT program would benefit research productivity to medical students, but also an early SRT program strengthened the research skills of medical undergraduates and motivated them to pursue research[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e18\u003c/span\u003e]. In addition, the international collaborative training programs had important impact on medical students\u0026rsquo; research ability[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e19\u003c/span\u003e]. Hence, the design of a structured SRT program is critical for enhancing innovation ability of medical students. Our results showed that most of the research projects were advisor-funded and advisor-consulted, only a very few projects were self-designed by students (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e). This implied that advisor\u0026rsquo;s guidance was critical for academic performance. In fact, our findings showed that postgraduates received more higher proportion of guidance, and thus higher academic performance.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe motivations for clinical research participation were usually linked to different benefits[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e20\u003c/span\u003e]. For engaging in research at Ningbo University, medical students responded that the primary factor was their personal interest. This primary motivation resulted in increased awareness of medicine, independence of research, and recognized individual limitations (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). Even though it\u0026rsquo;s well known that the research environments were extremely important for research outputs[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e21\u003c/span\u003e], our findings showed personal effort was the most important factor affecting academic achievements.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt has been reported that the undergraduate research experience significantly influenced their desire to pursue an occupation relating to science after graduation[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e22\u003c/span\u003e]. For medical students, the research participation linked to gained academic performance, improved knowledge, and planned individual development[\u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e23\u003c/span\u003e].\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusions","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe findings of this work indicated that understanding of research in undergraduates was higher than that in postgraduates, and engaging in research in undergraduates was earlier than that in postgraduates. Whereas postgraduates had higher research goals than undergraduates, and these specific goals led to much higher academic performance. Hence, these findings indicated that early SRT strongly linked to innovation ability of medical students. It is a necessary to construct an early extracurricular SRT program to train more future clinician scientists, and to improve the quality of medical education.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Abbreviations","content":"\u003cp\u003eNMLE \u0026nbsp; National Medical Licensing Examination\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSRT \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; Scientific Research Training\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors appreciate medical undergraduates and postgraduates at Ningbo University Health Science Center for their participating in anonymous surveys and feedback sessions, Mrs Min Zhang, student counsellor at Ningbo University Health Science Center, for her assisting in questionnaire survey.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor contributions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBW, LY, and ZG contributed to the development of the study, analysis, and interpretation of the data, writing, reviewing, and finalizing of the manuscript. ZG participated in the study conceptualization, analysed the data, and critically revised the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work was supported by the \u0026ldquo;14th Five-Year Plan\u0026rdquo; Teaching Reform Project of General Undergraduate Universities in Zhejiang Province (No. jg20220176), and the K.C.Wong Magna Fund at Ningbo University.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData availability\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe data is presented in the figures. Readers seeking access to any of the raw data may contact the corresponding author on reasonable request, Zhaohui Gong: [email protected]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthical approval and consent to participate\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study was approved by the Ethical Review Board of Ningbo University Health Science Center\u0026nbsp;(IRB no. NBU-20221205). Students were ensured of confidentiality and provided signed informed consent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent to publish\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo individual\u0026rsquo;s data are included in this study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting interests\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no competing interests.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLiu X, Feng J, Liu C, Chu R, Lv M, Zhong N, Tang Y, Li L, Song K. Medical Education Systems in China: Development, Status, and Evaluation. Acad Med. 2023;98(1):43\u0026ndash;9.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003ede Oliveira NA, Luz MR, Saraiva RM, Alves LA. Student views of research training programmes in medical schools. Med Educ. 2011;45(7):748\u0026ndash;55.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCepanec D, Humphries A, Rieger KL, Marshall S, Londono Y, Clarke D. Building Graduate Student Capacity as Future Researchers Through a Research and Training Award Program. J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(5):284\u0026ndash;7.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eElharram M, Dinh T, Lalande A, Ge S, Gao S, Noel G. Global Health Values of a Multidirectional Near Peer Training Program in Surgery, Pathology, Anatomy, Research Methodology, and Medical Education for Haitian, Rwandan, and Canadian Medical Students. 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Acad Med. 2003;78(12):1271\u0026ndash;80.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLi XF, Chen XJ, Li HQ, Chen LN, Xu XJ. Application research of program management in medical students' emergency ability training. Basic Clin Pharmacol. 2018;123:21\u0026ndash;21.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eZhang L, Yu J, Peng X, Gong Z. The Impact of a Planned Strategy of Early Scientific Research Training on Medical Students\u0026rsquo; Research Productivity. Eur J Educ Pedagogy. 2022;3(2):183\u0026ndash;9.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLee GSJ, Chin YH, Jiang AA, Mg CH, Nistala KRY, Iyer SG, Lee SS, Chong CS, Samarasekera DD. Teaching Medical Research to Medical Students: a Systematic Review. Med Sci Educ. 2021;31(2):945\u0026ndash;62.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChen H, Teng T, Chen H, Liu X, Liu Z, Li X, Jie W, Wu X, Cao L, Hongyan W, et al. 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PLoS ONE 2015, 10(6).\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Scientific research training, Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Innovation ability, Medical education","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4127631/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4127631/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003ch2\u003eBackground\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eScientific research training (SRT) in basic medical sciences and clinical sciences plays critical roles in the development of clinical skills and innovation ability. We aimed to explore the current status of SRT in both medical undergraduates and postgraduates, and the relationship between early SRT and innovation ability in medical students.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMethods\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe designed two questionnaires for undergraduates and postgraduates respectively to investigate the understanding, and participation of SRT, the motivations and factors for engaging in research, the advisor\u0026rsquo;s guidance of SRT, the academic performance of SRT, and the assessment of research conditions and suggestions for SRT. The questionnaire survey was conducted on 108 undergraduates and 86 postgraduates at Ningbo University. Then we collected data and analysed it with descriptive statistics.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eResults\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe results showed that undergraduates had more interest, understanding, and requirements for scientific research. Understanding of SRT in undergraduates (81.26%) was higher than that in postgraduates (56.97%). More than 70% of undergraduates had research experience in the early grades and the average time participating in SRT was more than one year. Participating in SRT in undergraduates (first and second year of undergraduate) was earlier than that in postgraduates (first year of postgraduate). In particular, personal interest was the major motivation for engaging in SRT. The vast majority of postgraduates (89.53%) had higher research goals than undergraduates (75%). These specific goals led to much higher research gains. Additionally, postgraduates (90.7%) could receive more higher proportion of guidance than undergraduates (67.59%), and thus higher academic performance (15.12% vs. 2.78%). Interestingly, most students were satisfied with the lab conditions and their personal efforts were primarily to achieve better academic performance.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eConclusions\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese findings indicated that early SRT is strongly linked to the innovation ability of medical students, suggesting a necessity to construct an early extracurricular SRT program to train more future clinician-scientists and to improve the quality of medical education.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Early scientific research training links to the innovation ability of medical undergraduates and postgraduates: a qualitative and quantitative survey","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-03-27 19:55:21","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4127631/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"59252b1b-2f52-4247-b6ae-3c3c9ff3b113","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 27th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-05-29T07:24:01+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-03-27 19:55:21","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4127631","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4127631","identity":"rs-4127631","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}