Summary:
One of the main objectives of teaching the Biochemistry I discipline at the Biochemistry Department of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro is to foster the student scientific attitude. The pedagogical method followed by “the discovery” is understood as one way to lead the students to acquire knowledge as well as to discovery the scientific pattern which produced the knowledge.
This papper discuss results from a study related to the discipline receptivity by the students and the relation between that receptivity and the possibility of “thinking, reasoning and using their own minds” without loss of the subject being taught. It is also shown the change the student suffers along the undergraduate course that is, from a greater interest in participating in the building of the scientific knowledge to a situation of simple consummer. At the end of the medical course the student tendency is to see the medical practice unrelated to the scientific practice.