Table 4.
Proportion of Pakistani Medical Students with Correct Answers for Questions¶
| No. (%) | |
| 1. How would you define the scientific hypothesis? | 58 (29.4) |
| a. A proposed idea or thought | |
| b. An answer or solution to a question | |
| c. An answer or solution to a question which has a capacity of verification or empirical demonstration* | |
| d. logical deduction of the premises that may or may not be verified empirically | |
| 2. How would you define scientific theory? | 89 (45.2) |
| a. Speculation or assumption with no or insufficient evidence | |
| b. Scientific hypotheses that may be proven, but lacking evidence for verification. | |
| c. Set of scientific knowledge on a given topic or area | |
| d. System of hypotheses logically connected to one another, with common background, some of which have been verified* | |
| 3. How would you define the scientific truth? | 135 (68.5) |
| a. The truth that will be reached through scientific research | |
| b. Absolute truth | |
| c. Consensus of competent experts * | |
| d. Fact that can be found in the textbooks | |
| e. Facts that your professors teach you | |
| 4. The essential characteristic of science is: | 47 (23.9) |
| a. All scientific conclusions are temporary* | |
| b. Scientific theory cannot merely explain natural phenomena, but must somehow also exert influence upon them | |
| c. Rather obvious scientific conclusion does not have to be testable | |
| d. An experiment is not an objective model of the nature but serves as an introduction into real research of natural phenomena | |
| 5. A scale from 1 to 5 (like grades on an examination) is called: | 96(48.7) |
| a. Ratio scale | |
| b. Nominal | |
| c. Ordinal * | |
| d. Interval | |
| e. It is not a scale | |
| 6. Representativeness is a key characteristic of a: | 106 (53.8) |
| a. Scientific paper | |
| b. Professional paper | |
| c. Scientific research | |
| d. Sample* | |
| e. Population | |
| 7. MEDLINE is: | 120 (60.9) |
| a. The first and best known "on-line" medical journal | |
| b. International association of medical informaticians | |
| c. Printed form of the Excerpta Medica | |
| d. Abbreviation (acronym) that lists the parts of the research article | |
| e. Medical database* | |
| 8. In the previous year, you have published a paper in a prestigious Journal of Immunology. Now you want to check the number of citations your paper has received. The best way to do it would be to search the: | 81 (41.1) |
| a. author index of the MEDLINE database | |
| b. Corporate index of the Science Citation Index database | |
| c. Author index of the Current Contents database | |
| d. Citation index of the Science Citation Index database* | |
| e. Author index of the Science Citation Index database | |
| 9. The part of a scientific paper is: | 119 (60.4) |
| a. Author's curriculum vitae | |
| b. Letter to the editor enclosed with the paper | |
| c. Description of the timeline | |
| d. Acknowledgment to persons who assisted you during the research* | |
| 10. All listed rules apply to the process of writing an Introduction section of a scientific paper EXCEPT: | 114 (57.8) |
| a. clearly state why the research has been started | |
| b. do not explain textbook facts | |
| c. do not explain words from the title of the paper | |
| d. make it longer rather than shorter* | |
| e. clearly define the question to which your research aims to provide an answer | |
| Mean score (+ SD) | 49.0 + 19.7 |
¶Questions used with permission of Vodopivec et al. [8], *Correct