Validation and Application of an Instrument to Assess Attitudes and Difficulties that Forensic Science Students Present during Forensic Practice

Ileana M. Petra Micu^1, , Zoraida García Castillo², Ana M. Sosa Reyes³, Mariana Fouilloux Morales⁴, Gabriela Hernández Cárdenas⁴ and Patricia M. Herrera Saint Leu³

¹Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Faculty of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Av. Universidad 3000, Circuito Escolar s/n, Facultad de Medicina, Edificio "F", Ciudad Universitaria, C.P. 04510, Ciudad de México

²School of Forensic Science of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM. Av. Universidad 3000, Circuito de la Investigacipon Científica, Ciudad Universitaria, C.P. 04510, Ciudad de México

³School of Forensic Science of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM

⁴Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM

Cite this paper:
Ileana M. Petra Micu, Zoraida García Castillo, Ana M. Sosa Reyes, Mariana Fouilloux Morales, Gabriela Hernández Cárdenas and Patricia M. Herrera Saint Leu. Validation and Application of an Instrument to Assess Attitudes and Difficulties that Forensic Science Students Present during Forensic Practice. American Journal of Educational Research. 2017; 5(2):138-143. doi: 10.12691/education-5-2-5

Abstract

The School of Forensic Science of the Universidad National Autonomous of Mexico was created in 2013. Internationally, no publications were found in which the students respond to experiences posed by certain activities during their forensic practice. A Likert style instrument was developed and was validated with 269 medical students, and subject to analysis of reliability to determine the alpha de Cronbach and Varimax factor analysis, then it was applied 56 forensic science students. Results: an Alpha of.732 and it explained 47.7% of the total variance in six components: motivation, negative reactions, anxiety somatization, perceptions, aversion, and professional profile. Over 70% regarded their practice in a positive way leaving 20 to 30% with doubts and conflicts. Conclusions. While the group under study is small, the results open an important field to explore the personality that these future professionals have and if necessary to offer appropriate help to overcome these problems.

Keywords:
forensic science attitudes reactions students forensic practice dissection

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