Comparison of Knowledge of Students Trained Practical Pathology by Traditional and Electronic (E-Learning) Methods

In last decades, the technology was outside the education but these days all the universities are eager to use new technologies for improving the quality of education. Isfahan University of Medical Sciences as one of the top universities in Iran, with 6000 students, will encounter problems with improving the quality of education and need to use new methods for education. Having knowledge about new technologies will help us to deal with these problems. In the other hand regarding the special feathers of our country, many researches should be done to choose the best methods. In this study we were to deliver the content of pathology laboratory via the internet and evaluate the knowledge and attitude of the students. This was a quasi experimental study which was done in the summer of 2008 at Isfahan University of medical sciences. All the volunteers were registered. They were 34 students who divided into two groups based on their means. The control group (14 students) was first told to take part the traditional course and the study group (20 students) takes part in the web based pathology laboratory and then they have gone to the laboratory and practiced their knowledge. The knowledge and attitude of the students were evaluated in both groups using t-test via SPSS15 software. Finally 34 students were registered, twenty students in the internet group and 14 students in the traditional group. The mean of knowledge questioner was 5.4 greater in the internet group than in traditional group (t = 4.593, P < 0.001). The findings of the study were shown that the students of internet group could better use their knowledge and had greater scores than the traditional. Finally, regarding the above it seems that use of such web based courses can promote students in learning. Also they are more eager to take part such courses. It is recommended to use this method to deliver other basic science courses.