Competencias investigativas, hábitos de trabajo y cualidades personales para el desarrollo de investigaciones en estudiantes universitarios

University education not only requires the acquisition of professional skills; students also need to develop research skills that enable adequate contexts knowledge and realities that will be an important part of their social and work environment. This study seeks to characterize and identify the relationships between research skills and work habits and personal qualities of university students for the development of scientific research projects. Through an investigation with a descriptive-correlational quantitative approach, the Scientific Competencies Questionnaire was applied to carry out research work by Colás, Buendía and Hernández (2009), with a reliability of .974, to 53 university students from a Peruvian private university. The results demonstrate optimal levels of development of scientific-intellectual skills, work habits and personal qualities, but lower levels of technical-instrumental skills. In addition, it shows significant correlations between work skills, personal qualities and scientific-intellectual skills. It is concluded that students have deficiencies in the use of specialized databases, reference managers and data processing software, but high motivation, responsibility and organizational and planning skills for the research projects development.