Medical students' perspective about role-plays as a teaching strategy in community medicine

To assess the students' perspective about role-plays conducted as a teaching methodology in community medicine. A quasi-experimental study. Department of Community Medicine at Fatima Memorial College of Medicine and Dentistry from July to November 2010. A probability technique of simple random sampling was used to collect 63 students from the third and fourth year MBBS who were randomly distributed in five sub-groups. They were variously ascribed the roles of obsceners, participants and helpers. A questionnaire was distributed to collect student's responses. The data was analyzed on SPSS version 17 to compare the responses. Chi-square test was applied and p-value was fixed at < 0.05 as significant. Sixty-three students were selected as participants of this study in which 46 belonged to the fourth year MBBS class [73%] and 17 were third year MBBS students [27%]. There were 13 male [20.6%] and 50 female [79.4%] students. Role-plays were identified as most effective method of teaching [n = 25, 37.9%] followed by lectures [n = 17, 25.8%, p = 0.054]. Fifty-two students [78.5%] admitted that role-plays improved their knowledge of the subject, 55 [84.6%] said that it will help them in their clinical performance. Fifty-nine participants [89.4%] found role-plays interesting and 49 [74.2%] wanted to incorporate role-plays as a part of curriculum. Fifty-six of the participants [88.9%] agreed that role-plays improved their communication skills. Twenty-one participants [31.8%] believed that it helped them in making acquaintance with the local situation. Forty-six students [76.7%] identified role-plays as a feasible way of andragogy [p = 0.005] and 48 [76.2%] said that it provoked critical thinking about the subject [p = 0.038]. Fifty-four students [85.7%] admitted that their attention span was better in role-plays as compared to lectures [p = 0.047]. Role-plays were well accepted by the students as an effective teaching methodology and can be incorporated as a part of teaching strategies in Community Medicine