Training Health Sciences Students in Qualitative Methodology

Abstract

Explaining the scope of the qualitative approach to health sciences undergraduate students is a challenge for those of us who must translate the anthropological and social perspectives of social research in health. This is because students are used to operating within the nature/culture and science/belief dichotomies. This challenge involves teaching them to look beyond these dichotomies and it demands that we, as lecturers, overcome the limited understanding that often characterizes the relationship of healthcare professionals with what the qualitative approach can offer them. Based on the teaching experience of the authors, this article aims to reflect on the implications of these challenges in the classroom, resorting to examples of qualitative research design exercises taught in the Speech and Language Pathology career at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile. We conclude that an early approach to qualitative methodologies would allow undergraduate students to develop a critical view of reductive dichotomies for the production and validation of knowledge. In addition, it would promote an understanding of the social dimension of health as an individual and collective phenomenon, and medicine as a transdisciplinary field of work.