Effectiveness of project-based learning in pharmacology as a teaching learning tool for second MBBS students in a medical college in South India

ABSTRACT

Background: Being a vast, volatile and dynamic subject, innovative teaching learning methods are required to generate student’s interest in learning Pharmacology. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to study the effectiveness of project-based learning (PBL) program (preparation of a poster or building a model) in improving learning in Pharmacology and to obtain student feedback on the program. Materials and Methods: Twenty-one topics with equal difficulty level were selected from the “must know” portions in Pharmacology. 97 students of second professional MBBS were divided into 12 groups for building a model and nine groups for preparing a poster. Groups for preparing a model had minimum five members and groups for preparing a poster had minimum four members in each group. They were asked to prepare the project based on the topic in 1 month as group task. On the day of the submission, one of the group members presented the model/poster and all other students attended the presentation. A test of ten questions (section A) was done on the students before the presentation which was entirely based on their own project. On the same day, pre-test (section B) having 20 questions, one from each topic was done before the presentation. Post-test was done for all the students immediately after the presentations and also after 1 week. Feedback forms were given to the students after the presentation. Data collected from both the projects were analyzed separately. Results: The improvement in immediate post-test was significant in students involved in both the projects compared to the pretest results. In the individual project assessment, ?50% marks were scored by 89.8% of the students involved in model building and 87.9% of the students involved in poster preparation. 46 students (78%) involved in model building and 24 students(72.7%)involved in the poster preparation opined that the overall process of preparing and presenting the poster/model was extremely enjoyable. 49 students (83.05%) involved in model building and 28 students (84.8%) involved in poster preparation opined that the project work was extremely helpful in understanding the topic. Conclusion: PBL can be incorporated as a novel teaching learning tool in Pharmacology.