Scientific Competence in Undergraduate Medical Education: Professional Orientations of Physiology Educators

Introduction: Scientific Competence (SC) is a central objective in medical education, but its conceptualization remains insufficiently differentiated, particularly regarding the relationship between evidence use and participation in scientific knowledge generation. Objective: This study reconstructs how physiology educators conceptualized SC and related different forms of scientific engagement within their professional orientation frameworks. Methods: Three group discussions were conducted in 2015–2016 with physiology educators from two German medical faculties and a didactic workshop of the German Physiological Society (n = 30). Bohnsack’s documentary method was used to reconstruct shared and contrasting professional orientation frameworks. Results: SC encompassed scientific thinking, scientific practices, and scientific agency. Critical appraisal, methodological understanding, and evidence-informed medical practice were consistently constructed as relevant to future physicians. Autonomous participation in knowledge generation was also valued, but its curricular positioning varied: participants differed in whether authentic inquiry should be expected of all students or whether more sustained independent research participation should primarily be associated with research-oriented trajectories. Conclusions: This historically situated reconstruction suggests that the central curricular question is not simply whether SC should be developed, but which forms of scientific participation should be expected of all physicians and which remain more closely associated with research-oriented trajectories. The findings offer conceptual hypotheses for examining this distinction in contemporary medical education.