Implementation and Evaluation of Priming as a Teaching-learning Tool for Enhancing Physiology Learning Among Medical Undergraduates

ABSTRACT

Background: It has been observed over the years that despite the best efforts of the teachers in reinforcingkey concepts in their lectures, the outcome in terms of students’ performance is not commensurate withthe efforts, especially when the students in question are mediocre. Our study focusses on a teachinginnovation that is more student-centric (active) than teacher-centric.Objectives: To demonstrate the benefits of priming students before delivering formal (didactic) lecture onkey concepts.Methods: Students were randomly divided in two groups (A and B). Both the groups were primed on differenttopics with an open-book MCQ based test, before didactic lectures. This was followed by didactic lectureson these topics and subsequent MCQ based assessment of both the groups, where one group serving asa control for the other and vice-versa. Marks obtained were compared between the groups using MannWhitney U test. Questionnaire was also administered to elicit their views on the method.Results: The mean marks scored by “Group A” primed on Nerve-Muscle topics (17.08±1.85) were significantlyhigher (p=0.0037) than the marks scored by the unprimed group (15.94±1.82). Improvement was observedin “Group B” primed on Blood-Immunity topics also but was statistically non-significant. (17.28±1.73 Vs16.74±1.81, p=0.1351). The students’ declared the ‘self-priming ‘process as an effective way of learning,which helped in better orientation during class-room lectures.Conclusion: The study proves the combination of student-centric priming model and didactic lecture assuperior to the conventional, teacher-centric method alone.