attitude and academic performance of medical students in research-centered teaching method

man&apos;s instinct for exploring is the most natural way to enhance motivation and, consequently, cognition. in the research-centered teaching method, developed after many y ears of teaching experience, the principles mentioned in textbooks are not presented directly instead, the lecture begins by posing an initial question about how scientists have discovered a certain principle. students are encouraged to explore a way to reach the answer and voluntarily suggest a proposal. the lecturer refines their views from scientific, methodological and ethical aspects, guides their thoughts towards a conclusion, and introduces their proposals&apos; related references. the session then continues with customary lecturing. this investigation-which was carried out to evaluate the effects of the initial research-centered teaching stage in the beginning of every session-assessed the medical student&apos;s attitudes by using a questionnaire, and their knowledge by taking an examination including a test exam, research essay and class attentiveness from 1993-95. the results indicated that 84.3% of the 562 students obviously preferred the research-centered method to a customary way to lecturing. statistical analyses were carried out on students&apos; attitude variables in cognition, enthusiasm, anxiety, and not interested categories. it was concluded that cognition is in favour of the research-centered method which, by way of exploratory thinking is related to increased enthusiasm among the students (p= 0.001). mean scores for research exam and class attentiveness were also higher in this group compared with those who chose only customary lecturing (p<0.05).