Conditioning factors for the scientific productivity of undergraduate students of health sciences at a private Peruvian University: A cross-sectional analytical study

Introduction

Nowadays, the academic development of universities is oriented primarily to the training of human talent, research and technological progress, a situation that is reflected in the research indicators used to determine the level of competitiveness, academic quality and resource allocation. In the face of this reality, university directives increase the demands on teachers, students and researchers in order to raise academic standards as well as the position in the various rankings that serve as a comparative benchmark in the educational system (Sirvent et al., 2016).

It is interesting to mention that, unlike countries in Europe, Asia and Oceania, in Latin America three quarters of research is concentrated in universities and mainly in public ones, tipping the balance towards conducting applied research rather than basic research, which is oriented towards the development of science and technology (Alarco, Changllio-Calle and Cahuana-Salazar, 2017).

Research published in journals of importance in the region of the Americas exceeds 100,000 titles in the period 1996–2003; however, very few correspond to production by university students, 75% belong to Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico, placing Peru in 8th place with 3% in that concept (Osada, Loyola-Sosa and Berrocal, 2014).

In Peru, research in university campuses is limited by a myriad of factors, including state investment, the lowest in this hemisphere -0.1% of GDP, below Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. This information allows us to understand why in the period prior to the enactment of the 2014 University Law, only three universities, one national and two private, concentrated 64% of the scientific production (Perdomo et al., 2020).

Moquillaza (2019) draws attention to the scarcity of information in indexed journals related to the scientific production of students in higher education institutions and the small number of journals that accept research conducted by students. Another aspect to point out in the Peruvian case has to do with the limited number of journals corresponding to university publishers that do not exceed 10% of these publications.

While as from 2018 there is evidence of greater research in Peru, it remains globally low; among the possible causes is the lack of indexed journals for research authored by students. Frequencies of reports are found in Colombia 11%, Chile 10% and similar in Peru. Student perception of the causes, besides the above, are related to the lack of research experience of the teaching staff and that the contents provided in research methodology courses are insufficient, in addition to not teaching or giving guidelines on writing an article and how to submit it to a journal for its publication (Santibáñez, 2017; Castro-Rodríguez, 2019).

Castro-Rodríguez et al. (2018), explain that only 4.5% of papers published in Scielo Peru had a contribution from at least one student from a Peruvian university, reflecting the pitfalls faced by university students when publishing an academic paper, as well as the lack of opportunities to be incorporated into research groups, a deficit in incentives and the underestimation of student capacities to develop quality research. Therefore, the objective of this research was to determine the conditioning factors for the scientific research productivity of undergraduate students of health sciences at a private university in Peru.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Determining the conditioning factors of scientific research productivity of undergraduate students of health sciences in order to provide relevant information that allows to know and understand the scientific behavior of this group of interest contributes to identify the university institutional responsibility as knowledge generating organizations (Daher, Panuncio and Hernandez, 2018) as well as to account for the level of implementation of the scientific method by the student body and the research practices that manage to permeate teachers (Chachaima-Mar, Fernández-Guzmán and Atamari-Anahui, 2019).

In contemporary society, universities, through the fulfillment of their mission of education, research and social interaction, play a transcendental role in the production and management of knowledge, innovation and technological development, for which they need to have clear, timely and relevant information regarding the factors that limit or promote scientific activity in students (Santibáñez, 2017; López, 2019).

This study found that only 27.75% of the students included in the population have publications in indexed journals and/or congresses, and only 1.6% have approved research projects. Besides, none of the students in the sample has a registered H-index. These results evidence the low participation of students in research, as previously reported by Castro-Rodríguez (2019) with a student scientific production of 10%, different from the previous study by Castro-Rodríguez et al. (2018) who reported 3.5% of students with at least one publication. This low student participation in research can be explained because 72% of the sample was in the sixth cycle of studies and research courses are oriented in the last cycles of the degree.

However, we found that 76% consider it important to do research as part of their personal growth; also, 65.5% of the sample has interest in participating in research, which is far from what was reported by Rojas and Méndez (2016) who analyzed the barriers in the process of teaching research in undergraduate, showing that there is less and less interest in engaging in research, but this situation is a consequence of a decreasing trend in the attitude towards research at a higher university level and the teaching responsibility to awaken and encourage a different attitude towards research processes (Alarco, Changllio-Calle and Cahuana-Salazar, 2017). This discordance between the high percentage of students interested in research and the low level of participation could be explained, according to our results, that for many, the university does not comply with some important aspects, such as offering agreements that promote student research, or the little recognition of the research interest of some students, besides, the academic community does not recognize the effort made by the university to advance in this aspect (Mirón-Chacón et al., 2020; Castro-Rodríguez, 2019).

The results indicate that providing recognition to students for their research activity is associated with performance rather than academic productivity, as previously reported in the study by Rueda-Barrios and Rodenes-Adam (2016) who found a statistically significant relationship between both variables. Universities need to promote the dissemination of research in the student body as well as to make visible the institutional effort to position the university in the research field both internally and externally, through various means that include national and international scientific journals, congresses and incentives to promote research, but that go unnoticed at the student level, as indicated by Oyarzún Maldonado et al. (2020). This aspect is relevant since the evidence suggests that recognition is a good practice that promotes and facilitates research management, such as the case of the universities best placed in world rankings that include incentive policies for research and those who do it (Tomàs-Folch, Ruíz and Labao, 2015).

There are uniform criteria to study scientific research productivity, but there are gaps in the application of these principles, caused, among other aspects, by the weak dissemination of internal policies on scientific publication among students. Many times, this effort is only reflected in the fulfillment of an indicator. It is also necessary the participation of the professor who teaches research, the advisor or mentor, to accompany the deep understanding of the implications of the scientific method transmitted by these policies (Vera and Vera, 2015).

Another important factor found in this study was related to knowledge management, a relevant aspect according to some authors since it is one of the key indicators that allows measuring the quality of universities (Calderón, 2017). We found a concern by students since they report that there is no proper dissemination and use of the results of the research in which they participate as part of the recognition and dissemination of their activities; likewise, most do not participate in scientific networks or groups, nor do they have access to scientific journals that facilitate the publication process. This is of great importance, since according to Rueda-Barrios and Rodenes-Adam (2016) these aspects are related to scientific productivity. However, in this study, we only found a statistically significant association with the dissemination of results. This difference is probably due to the characteristics of the sample, since the authors included professionals who did research.

Even though the results state that students recognize the qualification of the professors who teach research, this result is contradictory to those identified in the externalization dimension, where they express low participation in scientific networks and the perception of scarce dissemination of research results in indexed journals. In this regard, it should be emphasized that a network of knowledge and scientific research expresses the collective multidisciplinarity of the community and institutions when establishing strategic alliances for research purposes or to develop research projects based on quality practices, strengthening scientific cooperation and efficiency in the management of human, logistic and financial resources. This is an aspect to improve in Peruvian universities if they wish to actively improve scientific knowledge management and its assumption as a new institutional challenge (Bedoya et al., 2018).

Knowledge management by researchers, whether teachers or students, demands financial, institutional, logistical resources, among others, that researchers cannot assume and that necessarily require institutional support that the university management can solve through research policies and competitive fund strategies that encourage student researchers to walk the path of research (Ramirez, 2015; Daher, Panuncio and Hernandez, 2018). In spite of the above, there are gaps related to the development of mechanisms that influence the level of student interest and effort to publish. This raises the need to develop a research culture that contributes to consolidate and establish relationships between students, teachers and administrators, within the framework of knowledge communities, research networks and incentives for students to participate in research processes, so that the results also benefit the university (Mendoza et al., 2020).

This research finds evidence of the need to empower students as agents of change by channeling the research potential through strategies that incorporate research incentive structures for the participation and dissemination of new knowledge produced in response to a society that claims innovative solutions to the different problems that afflict the contemporary world. In this sense, the university is called to lead these research processes through an inter- and transdisciplinary approach that makes it possible to address the main scientific weaknesses of students, the ongoing training of teachers and the continuous promotion of relevant and participatory research activity of students that will result in better student scientific research productivity (Morán-Mariños, Montesinos-Segura and Taype-Rondan, 2019).

Conclusions

Student performance in scientific research was associated with management commitment, the feeling of personal growth through research, the recognition provided by the university, the existence of strategic alliances, the existence of research proposals, the dissemination and use of the results obtained by the students, and the availability of technological capital. These findings are consistent with what is described in the literature, they also provide relevant information to better understand the current situation of research in university faculties. There is little student participation in research, and this is an indicator that is not properly addressed in universities to promote a scientific attitude in their students, which may have medium-term consequences in terms of academic quality and university social impact. This suggests the need to reinforce university programs or systems for the control and follow-up of student scientific activity. Finally, there is a need to conduct studies of greater scope that delve more deeply into the conditioning factors of student performance in scientific research and the future panorama at national and international level.