Role of Innovations in Pathology Museum in Imparting Knowledge among Medical Students – A Hospital based Prospective Study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Medical school museums are a permanent educational resource that provides access at the individual’s convenience. Many factors contributed to the decline of museum use the high maintenance costs and the large amount of floor space. So, the objective of the present study was to assess the effect of “upgraded museum” settings on medical student’s satisfaction, knowledge, attitude and skills and to compare with traditional teaching settings. Material and Methods: All the 148 students were taught breast and thyroid topics during lecture hours. Pre-test was conducted for whole batch before the tutorials, using 50 multiple choice questions. For tutorials, students were divided into two groups (A and B) of 74 and 74 respectively. Group A (control group) were subjected to the traditional museum setting tutorials of having question / answer session and clarifying student doubts. Group B (experimental group) were exposed to innovative teaching &Learning aids like QR code generation and pasting it on museum specimens and corresponding slides and reading them by using smart phone applications. At the end of the two tutorial topics, all students (both control group and experimental group) were subjected to an examination having 50 multiple choice questions. Results: Group wise analysis of motivational levels based on Post-test Score (Experimental Group vs. Control Group) (Both topics). The significant t-value in the post tests indicates that the motivational levels of the Experiment group are much more than the control group of II year MBBS students. Conclusion: Innovative teaching &Learning methods at museum contribute to the improvement of skills; they provide a means for fun in the course, enrich the educational environment, encourage active participation and contribute to the reinforcement of knowledge gained in the course.