Use of Concept Map as a reinforcement tool in Undergraduate Curriculum: An analytical study

Ever-expanding medical literature demandssuccessful amalgamation of huge information and clinical practicefor budding doctors. This study aimed to find the effectivenessof the concept map, a novel method of teaching to improveperformance among undergraduate pharmacology students. The undergraduate medical students pursuingpharmacology in 2017-18 in our institute was divided into twogroups after stratified randomization based on the last semestergrades. After a session of didactic lecture on ‘Drugs affectingCalcium Metabolism’ and a pre-test, one group was taught usingtraditional tutorial methods and another group using the conceptmap method. Finally, a post-test was taken and feedback receivedfrom the intervention group. A significant improvement of student performance wasfound in both groups using validated questionnaire from pre-testto post-test. There was no significant difference in the percentageof improvement between the groups. This finding was consistentin both Low scorers and High scorers of the previous semesterexamination. Students found the new method better in terms ofunderstanding the concept and interactivity. Concept mapping encourages the students to activelyparticipate and get a comprehensive and accurate overview of thetopic, but the improvement in performance in the test was notevident.