Student’s preferences for learning in medical education.

ABSTRACT

Background: The mission of medical education is to provide the medical students adequate learning experiences so that they become competent doctors. In most of the medical schools of India, it is mainly taught by means of didactic lectures, tutorials and practical classes with often least interdisciplinary interaction. Objective: The objective of the present study was to explore the student’s preferences about teaching methods. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted during the period of July to November 2014 amongst 2nd year undergraduate medical students attending community medicine subject classes. Out of total 150 students, 138 were participated in the study. A pre-designed self-reported questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection. All opinions were rated using a five-point Likert scale, which ranges from “strongly preferred” to “strongly not prefer.” Data was entered in MS Excel and were analysed in the form of percentage and proportions whenever appropriate. Results: In this study, mean age of the students was 19.38 ± SD 0.69 years. Out of 138 students, 81(58.7%) were females and 57(48.3%) were males. Ninety nine (71.74%) students agreed that the length of MBBS curriculum should be 4.5 years. The most preferred mode for theory and practical teaching by students was focused group discussion and bedside clinic respectively. The most common obstacle faced by students during theory and practical learning was one way, non-interactive teaching. Conclusions: The students are interested in more interactive learning sessions. Students felt that the understanding is better with focused group discussion and bedside clinics.