Teaching methodologies; What is the students' perspective?

To determine preferences of medical students for modes of teaching, qualities of a good teacher and assessment techniques in medical education. A descriptive cross-sectional study. Lahore Medical and Dental College, Lahore. January 2011. All students of third and fourth year MBBS classes were included in the study [n=127]. A pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. A 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1[strongly disagree] to 7[strongly agree] was used to determine student's preferences of teaching styles. The data was recorded using SPSS version 16.0. Descriptive statistics were computed. The preferred teaching methods for basic science subjects were skills laboratory 88[70%], followed by problem based learning 70[55%] and interactive lectures 65[51%]. The same teaching methods i.e. skills laboratory 101[80%], problem based learning 89[70%] and interactive lectures 79[62%] were also popular for the teaching of clinical science subjects. The least preferred teaching method for both basic 51[40%] and clinical 58[46%] sciences was didactic lectures. The desirable quality of a good teacher was reported as teaching skills 111[87%] and the preferred assessment technique was found to be multiple choice questions 90[71%]. Students prefer the student centred teaching styles as opposed to the traditional approach. Good teaching skill is the most desirable quality of a teacher and most students like to be assessed by multiple choice questions