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System of biostatistical exercises for research activity in health students

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Anonim

With the implementation of a system of exercises in Statistics subjects, previously oriented as extraclass activities and inserted in a Website, the information management process and scientific knowledge are facilitated while applying Statistics in research by students in the Branch of Medical Sciences in Morón; Taking into account the insufficiency in the motivation and application of Statistics in research, a didactic analysis is made and the exercises are classified in the dynamics of learning, arriving at the systematic and final evaluations superior to those historically obtained.

Introduction

Science, as a system of knowledge about nature, society and thought, is an instrument that contributes to the solution of the problems faced by man in his relationship with his environment, based on the principles, categories, laws and theories, which are the fundamental content of all science and which allow to logically explain a specific phenomenon or process that is the object of scientific knowledge, which is historically conditioned in its development and which is based on the historical social practice of humanity; starting from the concept of science given by Dr. Lourdes Fernández Ruiz and affirming that the problems arise from the relationship that man-society-nature to the extent that he knows and transforms it. (9)

To the extent that man solves problems, nature and society are transformed, he does so through dynamic-dialectical processes in which each new moment of knowledge represents a new level in the development of the construction of the knowledge process; becoming the theoretical construction, from this point of view, in a gradual process of production, whose constructions are structured and more complex in higher order configurations.

On the other hand, we understand as a universal facilitator in the construction of this knowledge system the methodology of scientific research, a discipline that allows us to direct a certain process efficiently and effectively to achieve the desired results, and whose objective is the strategy to continue in the process.

The Methodology of Scientific Research is a scientific discipline that provides the researcher with the concepts, principles, laws and procedures that allow him to channel the scientific research process as a process of construction of scientific knowledge. (9) To develop the scientific research process, they can follow various methodologies; their selection depends on the object under investigation, as well as the conceptions and experience of the researchers.

Taking into account, currently the university centers attached to the research centers are the ones that govern, advise and generate all the scientific production; and Universities of Medical Sciences are not an exception, hence their insertion in the curricula of the Informatics Discipline and research, with the advances of the new Information Technology, in statistical tools and research methodology with a view to to the training of professionals along with the scientific-technical revolution that the health system has had.

At the present time there are excellent opportunities for Statistics as a tool that allows you to corroborate an investigation with the use of Informatics as a teaching medium; At the same time that the student appropriates knowledge, acquires and develops their logical thinking with greater assimilation and cognitive effectiveness, through active teaching, it promotes the development of the ability to think and learn to learn, motivated by the inclusion of new activities different from the traditional ones.

The study of Statistics for the collection, organization, processing, analysis and prediction in health, more than important, is a necessity, because through it the student investigates and is constantly updated; Hence, in their curriculum, the Statistics subject appears (with different names) in all the careers of Medical Sciences as a subject of the Research discipline; on the other hand, the uninterrupted development of Medical Sciences forces the future professional to possess investigative ability to the extent that knowledge is also managed as well as its updating, since the volume of information is very large and dynamic.

The careers of Medical Sciences are subject to a curricular restructuring, hence a critical analysis in the educational teaching process; its contextualization, the determination of its problems and the solution of them, will take place under the new pedagogical tendencies of the current University.

In the subject of Statistics, by means of a non-participatory observation in the educational teaching process, followed by the epistemological characterization in the systematic evaluations on extra-class work and the final evaluation, and the documentary study manifests itself: insufficient application exercises in professional profiles, insufficiency in the resolution of extra-class work and the misunderstanding of the theory-practice link with the professional profile.

For all these reasons, it is defined as a scientific problem Insufficiency in the application of Statistics tools, the search for information and knowledge available in scientific research by students who take the subject Biostatistics in medical science careers in the Branch of Medical Sciences "Arley Hernández Moreira".

With the insufficiency in the application of Statistical theory and the scientific information available, it is due to various causes: Lacks in the preparation of students in the previous teaching, lack of a system of exercises in the subject that encourages the application of Statistics and knowledge management in the investigation of their professional profile, total or partial ignorance of the Information and Statistical Centers, and difficulties in managing the information and scientific knowledge available to solve the teaching tasks.

Regardless of the existence of objective factors, there are subjective factors that externalize the problem, constituting the object of the research the teaching-learning process in the subject of Biostatistics in the careers of Medical Sciences.

In the teaching-learning process of the subject in research, it is essential to create intellectual skills in the management of information and knowledge, the corroboration of an investigation, especially if we are preparing a university student inserted in the new pedagogical model; Hence, the research will be directed towards the implementation of a system of exercises that will allow you to create the necessary skills in the application of Statistical tools, facilitating the corroboration and management of the information in an investigation of your professional profile.

THE OBJECTIVE: To implement a system of exercises applied to their professional profile based on the management of information and knowledge through extraclass work in the subjects of Biostatistics to students of the Medical Sciences Branch "Arley Hernández Moreira" with a view to the corroboration in the scientific research of his specialty.

The field of action: The management of information and knowledge in the subject of Statistics in the careers of Medical Sciences.

To achieve an optimization in learning, an active vigilance in the management of scientific knowledge information in our students, thus contributing to an investigative training; In the Statistics course we propose the following Hypothesis: If the system of exercises applied to your professional profile is implemented in the Biostatistics course supported by the management of information and available scientific knowledge, through extra-class work, corroboration is achieved in the scientific research in his specialty by the students of the "Arley Hernández Moreira" Medical Sciences Branch.

Development

In the investigative process of the natural and social sciences, the relationships and differences between the objectivity of scientific knowledge and what is the relationship between the theoretical and the methodological are established.

The dialectical character of the process of its knowledge: the knowledge of these processes is dialectically configured and is guided not only by the processes of induction and deduction, but also by ways that do not respond to a formal logic defined by concrete and universal rules to be followed in the process, but rather by the continuity of holistic constructions. Configuration is a constructive, dynamic, interpretive and irregular process that allows expressing the very holistic and contradictory nature of the processes being studied. (8)

According to the holistic-configurational theory of H. Fuentes (10.11, 12, 13,15)

The sub-links of this stage are: Motivation of the content, Understanding of the content and Systematization of the content.

Motivation of the content: Stage in which the openness and availability to learn occurs.

The relationship between the target - object - method configurations is given. Where the latter, through its motivating function, must guarantee that the process acquires a motivating dimension.

Understanding of the content: Stage in which with the help of the teacher, the students are introduced to the path of the construction of the contents and where the intelligibility and structuring of the content plays an important role, so that it can be understood by the learner.

The relationship between object - content - method is given. In this case, the method, through its functions, should favor the process to acquire a dimension of comprehensibility.

Systematization of content: A stage that is characterized by the generalization of the content through the exercise, transfer and application of the content. The objective - content - method relationship is given. The method through its functions should favor the systematizing dimension of the process.

The problems of biostatistics to be incorporated into the research process in professional training, in such a way as to guarantee a truly significant learning, based on the statistical interpretation of research problems with high professional content, must be enriched with aspects that demonstrate the professional presence and develop in students great motivation, mobilizing them to solve these problems, hence these problems acquire the character of teaching problems.

At the level of topics, teaching problems acquire the highest level of specificity, acquiring the character of problematized content, as it is the content of the topic that is expressed in a problematic way with the aim of promoting motivation in students initiates the appropriation of content.

The objectives and results as configurations of the professional training process

Didactic elements of biostatistical exercises for scientific research insofar as they manage information and knowledge.

The system of exercises constitutes an effective tool in motivating and applying statistics in the investigation of the professional profile of each specialty; While students develop their independent activities, apply statistical knowledge, they are forced to manage their own knowledge of their specialty through different sources of information, developing the educational teaching process towards a significant self-learning structured by subsystems, taking into account the configurations, dimensions and links proposed by Fuentes (2002) in the dynamics, as well as the algorithmic and problematic approach proposed in the methodology of teaching Biostatistics and the systemic-structured one by C. Álvarez (2,3).

For the organization of the system, it was taken into account… »to build a cognitive bridge between what the student knows and what he needs to know" so that he can significantly learn the task in question, that is, to activate ideas that already exist in the Cognitive structure of the student that will serve as INCLUSIVE IDEAS for the content and learning materials that will be presented later (4).

Starting from this initial diagnosis and the bibliographic review where there is no direct link with the exercises proposed in the literature and the investigative profile of the future professional, in each of the subsystems they are preceded by some necessary theoretical contents and the solution of examples resolved in The classes, through problem situations according to their specialty, for the understanding and development of skills in solving the proposed exercises, structuring them:

Preparatory exercises: they include formal construction exercises, allowing the reactivation of the content in an algorithmic way, sometimes suggesting the way forward

Example in the Bioanálisiclínico career. In a study on anemia in a rural population of Morón, hemoglobin levels have been taken from a random sample of 20 people, obtaining the following hemoglobin level values ​​in g / L: 125 130 143 104 120 150 132 100 130 145 126 132 111 143 125 149 141 135 105 103

a) Classify the variable under study and Make a frequency distribution table with 5 classes, recording in it the classes, accumulated absolute and absolute frequencies, relative frequencies, accumulated relative frequencies and in Percent, as well as the Class Marks.

Integrative exercises: the systematization exercises, simultaneously apply more than one theme to solve problem situations, integrating the skills: to access, create and search for the information and knowledge available.

Example in the Hygiene and Epidemiology career: When a worker is exposed to dinitrophenols, pesticides used in the fight against vectors, and in analyzes carried out they present concentrations of them in blood in amounts of 31 to 40 ppm, there is the possibility of producing some intoxication. A study of 15 vector control workers gave the following results: 39, 31, 39, 34, 39, 41, 40, 34, 35, 41, 32, 33, 38, 34 and 39. According to the average of the sample, it can be inferred at 95% reliability that the sample behaves as admissible.

Deepening exercises: generalization exercises.

With this type of exercises the student develops mastery of the content; It is where through a simulated situation you have to infer a solution from an investigation, identifying and applying the different topics studied.

Example in the career of Stomatology: In the subject: Education at work. They must make a diary of the patients attended by you with the following data: age, sex, pathology and frequency of consultation; From them, it will do a Statistical analysis by variable, and taking this data as a sample, you will compare it with those that are historically already known. Tabulate the data and graph the results.

Statistical analysis of the introduction of the result.

This research has been implemented in the 2011-2011 academic year with the Stomatology career, where the results of the systematic and final evaluations were compared with those of three previous courses:

Systematic Evaluation (%)

Final note (%)

Evaluation

two

3

4

5

two

3

4

5

2007-08

45.6

33.7

18.3

2.4

1.3

73.5

18.2

7.0

2008-09

40.1

34.3

20.1

5.6

1.6

74.5

20.5

4.4

2009-10

37.5

32.9

25.4

4.2

0

72.9

20.8

6.3

2010-11

10.5

Four. Five

32.4

12.1

0

17.4

33.6

79.0

Currently this system of exercises is implemented in the Hygiene and Epidemiology career with the setbacks in the systematic evaluations:

Systematic Evaluation
Evaluation

two

3

4

5

2010-11

-

one

two

one

On the other hand, unstructured interviews were carried out with the students to identify the level of satisfaction with the exercise system, with the following results:

  • 100% state that these exercises allow them to link statistics with the professional profile. 92% see it as a tool that will allow them to identify the statistical theory with the corroboration of future research. 97% are more motivated in each topic and better understand the content.

Among the recommendations made: Increase the number of systematization and deepening exercises, also advice from teachers in their research and that this type of exercises is manifested in the final exams taking into account the specialty.

With the implementation of the system of exercises intentionally selected by subject and professional profile, where, starting from problematic situations of the different specialties of Medical Sciences, the significant motivation of Statistics is achieved as a tool in the corroboration of all scientific research, to the extent who feels the need to manage the necessary information and knowledge; their professional training is strengthened with a high level of social and ethical commitment.

Conclusions

Through a conscious and objective study, it was concluded in the Health Technology Branch that:

  • The application of a system of exercises for the application in the corroboration of an investigation in the professional profile allows the creation of the necessary skills for the investigation in Health. The dynamics of the extra-class activities allows achieving the optimization in the teaching-learning process in the Biostatistics Program. The methodology to be used allows students to solve problems, as they manage knowledge and scientific information of their professional and research profile.

recommendations

With the introduction of a System of exercises in the subjects of Biostatistics

  • Continue the bibliographic review and deepen the contents to increase the exercises by professional profile, taking advantage of the existing multimedia in the dissemination of the same. At the highest level of medical teaching, the inclusion of the exercise system in the other subjects of the career.

Bibliography

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System of biostatistical exercises for research activity in health students