Effectiveness of competency-based teaching and comparison to traditional teaching of Phase I MBBS students

ABSTRACT

Background: During MBBS course, the students’ study about cardiovascular system (CVS) in physiology, pathology, pharmacology, preventive medicine, pediatrics, and medicine for the management and diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders. Blood pressure measurement is a common and a beneficial tool for the diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders (hypertension, hypotension, etc.) along with their treatment and management. Thus, knowing the proper technique of measuring blood pressure becomes an essential part of learning the course and management of cardiovascular disease. This study is designed to teach and train the first phase undergraduate students to measure blood pressure in a proper way so that they do not stumble on the first step of examination of CVS. Competency-based training is an outcome-based approach that involves identifying the skills acquired by Indian medical graduate. Competency-based teaching involves teaching of undergraduate students to support their achievement and assessment of the communication and technical skills and to develop their ability to interpret the results of blood pressure measurement for apt patient management. Aim and Objectives: This study aims to assess and compare the effect of competency-based teaching and traditional teaching in learning the skill of blood pressure measurement. Materials and Methods: Two hundred students were taken from Phase I undergraduate medical students which were randomly divided in two Groups A and B. Competency-based teaching of blood pressure measurement was done in Group A in by teaching method of demonstrate, observe, assist, and perform and Group B was taught by traditional demonstration. Pre-test questionnaire was given to both the groups before beginning of the practical session. The students learning of skill to measure blood pressure was assessed by directly observed procedural skills (DOPS) checklist after which student feedback was provided along with filling up of the post-test questionnaire. Furthermore, feedback from both student and teacher was collected. Results: Highly significant difference was found between pre-test and post-test of both Group A and Group B. Significant difference was found between Group A and Group B post-test scores. It was found that Group A in which competency-based teaching was done scored higher post-test scores then Group B. Furthermore, highly significant difference was seen among the scores of DOPS checklist between Group A and Group B. Conclusion: In the present research study, it was found that the students who underwent competency-based training of the skill of blood pressure measurement showed significantly higher scores in learning and performing the skill. Furthermore, on feedback provided by the students, 96% of the students strongly agree that the competency-based teaching and learning is better than traditional teaching.