Lectures or small group discussions: What do undergraduate medical students perceive and prefer

Physiology is the knowledge of normal functions of the body. Although different teaching methods are used to teach the subject including didactic lectures, small group discussions, tutorials, etc., students’ perception of these methods is important. The study was designed to assess the perceptions of medical students about lectures and small group discussion (SGD) and to check the preference of high achievers about the two methods.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted at a medical college from April till July 2022. After approval from the Institutional review board, students of first- and second-year Bachelor of Medicine, and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) participated with consent. Data was collected with a structured questionnaire and described as frequency and percentages. To check the association between categorical variables chi-square test was applied.

A total number of 268 students participated including 148 females and 120 males. 65.3% of the students preferred SGDs over lectures. The Chi-square test revealed a significant association between high performance and SGDs regarding accountability in the session, communication skills, presentation skills, and analytical thinking as well as problem-solving (p-value < 0.05). Overall, 75% of the high achievers preferred SGDs while 25% were in favor of lectures. There was a significant association between the high achievers and SGDs (p < 0.001).

Medical students preferred SGDs over lectures as SGDs improved their communication, analytical and reasoning skills. SGDs are associated with high performance regarding communication skills, presentation skills, and analytical thinking as well as problem-solving.