Introduction:

Meaningful learning is generated from the fact that the student is the constructor of his or her own knowledge, relates the concepts to be learned, and gives them a meaning based on the already existing conceptual structure.

Objective:

To present the experiences socialized by authors who promote meaningful learning in medical education.

Methods:

The scientific method of content analysis was used, based on information available in the SciELO online electronic library and the Google Scholar search engine, taking into account the last ten years: January 2011 to December 2021. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 16 academic articles were selected and analyzed.

Results:

56.25 % used a qualitative design, while the used samples ranged from a minimum of 7 to a maximum of 246 students. Medicine was shown as the major that most studied meaningful learning. Problem-based learning in the intracurricular format was the most used methodology to develop it. The main reported limitations were related to the instrument and the sample.

Conclusions:

It is necessary to conduct research to study meaningful learning in health sciences students. In this way, contextualized results could be obtained to make comparisons that would contribute to clarify the different factors involved in the development of this theory.