Asociación entre las habilidades mentales primarias y el rendimiento académico en estudiantes de medicina de pregrado / Association between Primary Mental Abilities and Academic Performance in Undergraduate Medical Students

Con el propósito de analizar la asociación que existe entre las habilidades mentales primarias cuando se ingresa a la carrera de medicina y el rendimiento académico cuando se termina el octavo semestre, se realizó un estudio observacional y retrospectivo en 121 egresados de la Licenciatura de Medicina de una escuela particular del norte de México. Las habilidades mentales primarias se consideraron como variables predictoras, en tanto el rendimiento académico se asumió como variables de resultado. El razonamiento y la comprensión verbal presentaron asociación estadísticamente significativa con el rendimiento académico, arrojando un valor de p = 0,013 y 0,029, respectivamente, por lo que podemos concluir que el rendimiento académico en estudiantes de medicina requiere principalmente del razonamiento y de la comprensión verbal.

In order to analyze the association between primary mental abilities on admission to a medical career and academic performance at the end of the eighth semester, we conducted a retrospective observational study of 121 graduates of the bachelor of medicine at a private school in northern Mexico. The primary mental abilities were considered predictor variables while the academic performance was seen as outcome variable. The reasoning and verbal comprehension, showed statistically significant association with academic performance, giving a value of p = 0.013 and 0.029 respectively, so we can conclude that academic performance of medical students, mainly requires reasoning and verbal comprehension.

Student Perceptions and learning outcome on Primary Mental Ability-based Pharmacology Learning.

Objectives: To test the perceptions and learning outcome of undergraduate medical students on primary mental-ability based pharmacology modules at American Institute of Medicine, Seychelles. Methods: Pharmacology teaching was conducted for 13 weeks to two groups of students in the undergraduate MD program using 2 different methods. Group A (n=56) was taught by the newly designed 9 modules based on Louis Thurstone’s concept of primary mental abilities of spatial-visual and numerical abilities, perceptual speed, and inductive reasoning. Group B (n=50) received the conventional teaching with 4 traditional methods. Student perceptions were tested in both groups. Learning outcome was compared by administering a comprehensive pharmacology examination. Results: Group A taught by the newly designed primary mental ability-based modules recorded higher perception scores as compared to Group B taught by traditional methods. The difference was statistically significant on two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test (p < 0.025) as well as Mann-Whitney test (p < 0.025). Pharmacology examination yielded higher scores for Group A taught by primary mental ability-based modules, with a statistically significant difference on “Wilcoxon Rank Sum” (Mann-Whitney U test) (p < 0.01) and “Unpaired test” (p = 0.0097). Conclusion: Student perceptions and learning outcome was strongly positive for learning modules based on primary mental abilities of spatial-visual and numerical abilities, perceptual speed, and inductive reasoning.