Faculty’s Perception of a Research Project Embedded in the Undergraduate Veterinary Curriculum

Abstract

In this article, we describe faculty’s perception of a research project embedded in the final year of the undergraduate veterinary curriculum and look at factors associated with overall perceptions of the project. We hypothesized that faculty would have a dichotomous attitude toward the research project, with faculty viewing it either positively or negatively, and that this opinion of the project would be largely influenced by the background of the faculty member—in particular, her or his role at the Royal Veterinary College. We explored this hypothesis via a questionnaire consisting of 26 questions in categorical format, Likert-scale format, and ranking format. The questions addressed faculty demographics, faculty’s perceptions of the project, and generic skills. Faculty had an overall positive view of the project and found it to be a useful part of the undergraduate curriculum (83.3% found it to be useful or very useful). Faculty’s perception of the project was influenced by their role at the college ( p = .017), the species with which they primarily work ( p = .05), and their opinion on the time spent supervising the final-year project ( p = .003). We concluded that faculty view research as an important and useful part of the undergraduate veterinary curriculum.