Reshu - the competences of medicine, nursing and professions allied to medicine, related to research methods, should be the same thing. In some Westernised countries, health professional undergraduate students are taught research methodology etc together in the early part of their training - as potential 'regulated' health practitioners all working on the same 'health arena' - all educated to strive for the same outcome - good, safe, quality patient care. It seems common-sense to adopt a broader approach of 'health professions education' within Faculties/Colleges of Health. The principles of effective research governance, evidence-based practice, an informed overall appreciation of research methodology - and an appreciation of qualitative, quantitative and mixed method paradigms are a 'basic' and 'minimum' construct for all health professional disciplines.

So - in direct response to your question - a single, well -constructed module for all students makes the most sense to me - both structurally and economically. As to whether this model will be universally accepted - that's more a debate to be contested between the post-modernists and the traditionalists. Post-modernists are generally already 'sold' on the concept. Traditionalists generally want to maintain the 'status quo' against the context of 'professional protectionism'.

Thanks Dean..I guess me and my department share similar thoughts on this. We teach five undergraduate programs separately as they are under separate schools with separate curriculum. I think it is a inefficient use of our time and human resources. I would also want to know how practical it is to give demonstrations of statistical softwares like Epi info and SPSS to health professional undergraduates?

I agree with Dean, a single generic introductory module followed by more concepts introduced in subsequent modules should keep the focus and everyone has the choice to join according to their own research needs...

Reshu I think it would be best to give the students small projects or dummy data to enter and analyze on the softwares themselves. this would consolidate all the methods you are trying to teach them...

regards, raza

Dr.Reshu

We have to make common module for all undergraduate medical students, there three things we suppose to know a teacher before making any module for UGs

first is must know

second is desire to know

third is nice to know

as a teacher we should teach must know for the student.

for second questions

we should ask the student to enter 20 students name age sex, date of birth other variables relevant to descriptive statistics. so they will understand all kind of simple statistics.