Evaluation of Learning and Satisfaction of Medical Internship Students in Offering Orthopedic Courses: Traditional Education and Blended Education

 Clinical medical education is important due to the impact it can exert on improving patient care and quality of care. This study endeavored to compare traditional and blended education in teaching orthopedic general medicine internship students in terms of learning and educational satisfaction in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in the academic year 2018.

 This study was an educational intervention with a post-test design was performed on 106 interns in the orthopedic department of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Samples were selected by convenience sampling and divided into two groups of blended education (virtual and clinical) and traditional (clinical) education in a sequential and non-random manner. The final OSCE test scores were used to assess learning and the researcher-made questionnaire was a tool for measuring educational satisfaction. Significance level was considered less than 0.05.

 It was revealed that there was no significant difference between the mean and standard deviation of the OSCE exam score in the traditional education group (17.81±2.21) and in the combined education group (17.75±1.76) (P=0.85). In terms of the total score of educational satisfaction and its subgroups including academic competence, dynamism and interest, strengthening the motivation and academic competence of students, the relationship between teacher and student in and outside the department, evaluation and feedback system, curriculum planning, ethical issues, educational rules, and regulations; there was a significant difference between the scores of the traditional education group (116.04±24.83) and the blended education group (147.71±26.53) (P<0.001).

 According to the results of this study and the satisfaction of interns, it seems that by increasing the quality of virtual education equipment and its expansion in clinical medicine, the ultimate goal of improving the quality of education and continuing the educational process in crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic can be achieved.