Comparing the Use of Video Clips and Traditional Methods for Teaching Schizophrenia: Perspective of Students

Modern educational methods are influential in improving the quality of education and learners’ satisfaction. The aim of this study was to introduce the teaching method using “video clips” in teaching schizophrenia and survey the viewpoints of psychiatry students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences compared to using traditional methods.
This quasi-experimental study was conducted in 2013 on 101 psychiatry students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences who were selected by convenience sampling (census) and divided randomly into traditional teaching group (n=47) and video clip groups (n=54). Research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. Its validity was confirmed by the psychiatry and medical education experts and the reliability was confirmed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (α=0.92). The questionnaire was administered after teaching schizophrenia using the two methods and the viewpoints of both groups were compared. The collected data were analyzed using independent t-test and Mann whithney test.
Sixty of the participants were female and 41 were male with the mean age of 24 years. Despite the increase in the means scores of some items, there was only a significant difference in instructor’s scientific mastery (p=0.005, t=0.64), novelty and attractiveness of educational instrument (p=0.000, t=3.7) and greater fitting of the educational package compared to traditional note taking (p=0.005, t=1.7).
Students’ satisfaction with lecture method in understanding the contents and their openness to new methods of learning indicate the effectiveness of the traditional method and the need for further improvement in combination with new methods. Further research is required to verify the role of using video clips in teaching psychiatry students.