Abstract

PETRA-MICU, Ileana; CORTES-MORELOS, Jacqueline; TALAYERO-URIARTE, José Antonio  and  FOUILLOUX-MORALES, Mariana. Semantic representation of the concept of medicine in medical students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico: A longitudinal study. Investigación educ. médica [online]. 2012, vol.1, n.2, pp.49-56. ISSN 2007-5057.

Introduction: Little has been studied about the way in which medical students develop the term medicine. This research focuses on how the concept develops during their career. Objective: the analyses of the restructuring process that the student performs on the concept of "medicine". Method: Qualitative five-year longitudinal study with annual cross-sections, in students from a high academic performance program at UNAM Faculty of Medicine in Mexico. A natural semantic networks (RSN) method was used that analyzed: 1) The total number of words generated around the term "medicine", 2) The frequency with which they used these terms, 3) Semantic value of the terms that were more frequently mentioned, 4) The distance between the terms according to their percentage, and 5) The forming of term clusters based on their conceptual similarity. Results: An average of 800 words was obtained during the five years of the study. In first year, the students centered on the words "life" and "health", in the second year on "health", "disease", and "science", in third and fourth year the main term was "patients", and in the fifth year it was "health". The terms clustered into seven categories: values, knowledge, tools, characteristics of the individual, people involved, participants and medical activities. Conclusions: Ten words were prevalent throughout the study and were joined to define Medicine as: the health of the patient, to avoid illness in favor of life, with the support of the doctor, based on the science and knowledge to cure in the clinic. The studied population provides data that are valuable for decision making in education, course content organization, selection of texts, and the implementation of strategies for learning and the development of assessment instruments.

Keywords : Semantic networks; concept; medicine; student.

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