Journal of Medical Education
Volume:14 Issue: 1, Feb 2015

Background and Traditional lecture-based teaching has been long used to transit theoretical knowledge to the participants. Due to some problems of this didactic approach, some believe that integration within an active method is more valuable in nursing education. In this study, we hypothesized that integrating lecture-based teaching within clerkship course would enhance nurse-anesthesia students’ knowledge. A prospective randomized study was conducted. Twenty four students of two-year nurse-anesthesia participated in the study. All of the students received either didactic lectures or integrated lectures within clerkship course during a four-month semester of their educational curriculum. Their knowledge of anesthesia course was assessed at the end of the course using Wilcoxon Rank test. The integrated method improved students’ final scores at the end of the semester (p=0.004). Moreover, their scores was much better when taxonomy-2 questions were compared (p=0.001). Incorporating didactic lecture within anesthesia clerkship course improves participants’ knowledge of anesthesia course.

Background and Studies have shown the advantages of e-CME programs. Developing Case-based e-CME activities, one of the popular formats of e-CME programs, is difficult and time consuming. In this article we describe our experience of performing instructional system design for creating case-based e-CME contents. We performed a five-step instructional system design (i.e. system analysis, design, development, delivery and evaluation) to create e-contents. We held several sessions with experts of the field to perform system analysis. Then we determined contents’ framework and a plan for faculty members’ development and incentives. In the development phase, we held workshops for faculty members and trained e-learning advisors who would help faculties to create contents. Incentives were legitimized. Then we delivered programs to the learners who would fill a program evaluation questionnaire after completing the study of each program. 20 e-CME programs were developed and delivered to the learners. Totally 3644 learner-programs were studied. Cases rated the programs as 4.56 (SD= 0.65) on the 1–5 Likert-type scale. Results showed that the learners rated this kind of learning activity very high. On the other hand we had some challenges for developing the contents. Performing a comprehensive instructional system design would help to overcome the barriers.

While learner centered language teaching has been advocated in higher education in recent years, teacher centered pedagogical styles seem to be predominant in many instructional settings. The premise is that all teachers must be equipped with deep knowledge of pedagogical improvements and take advantage of these instructional innovations for the betterment of their pedagogies.. The present study investigates the preference of the instructors for teaching in traditional vs. learner centered styles of teaching at Zanjan medical university. A questionnaire was used to find out the teachers’ preferences for either of these styles. The subjects of this study consisted of 30 faculty members of zanjan medical university teaching at different faculties in different fields of study. Results indicated that most instructors (90%) still use traditional / teacher centered approaches in our university setting despite the call for a shift to learner centered approaches. This study pointed out that the instructors needed more facilities and more fundamental knowledge of learner-centered approaches in order to apply this mode of instruction in their process of teaching.

Background and Today, medical teaching moves from lecture based toward computer based learning. Learning style may have a key role in attitude toward computer. The goal of this study was to study relationship between learning style and attitude toward computer in Iranian medical students. In this cross sectional study, 400 medical students selected. Barsch learning style inventory and attitude toward computer questionnaire sent for them. In different learning styles enthusiasm, anxiety, and overall attitude toward computer were compared. Response rate was 91.8%. The distribution of learning styles in students was: 181(49.3%) visual, 106 (28.9%) auditory, 27 (7.4%) tactual, and 53 (14.4%) combined. Visual learners were less anxious for computer use and more positive overall attitude toward computer. Sex, age and grade were not associated with attitude toward computer. learning style is an important factor in attitude toward computer in medical students that should be considered in planning for computer based learning.

Background and An open-book exam permits the examinees to consult some selected reference sources or materials while answering the exam questions. This study focused on students'' perspectives of open-book examinations in histology/ embryology courses, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences (ZUMS), Zahedan, Iran. The survey was conducted via a questionnaire after open-book examinations in histology and embryology courses during the 2009-2010. Of 254 students who entered to the new education system, 160 students selected randomly. Results showed that 72% of the students preferred open-book to closed-book examinations. Most of the students stated that this type of exams is more suitable for high cognitive learning and solving real life situation problems, with less stress while preparing and taking the exam. They also mentioned that their marks in these examinations were not higher than closed-book examinations. The Overall satisfaction scores in biological sciences students were significantly (P<0.001) higher than medical sciences students (16.28 ± 4.17 vs. 12.65 ± 5.16), in governmental university students was significantly (P<0.001) higher than international university students (14.93 ± 4.53 vs. 10.24 ± 5.08), in the embryology course was significantly (P<0.001) higher than histology course (15.23 ± 4.07 vs. 12.79 ± 5.4) and in MD students was significantly (P<0.001) lower than BSc students (12 ± 5.1 vs. 15.93 ± 4.29).There was a positive correlation between the score they acquired in their course and the overall satisfaction score with open book examinations (r = 0.46, P-value = 0.01). The finding of a positive response toward the open-book examination foresights is well for extending such an examination to other subjects in our university.

Partial knowledge is one of the main factors to take into account when dealing with the improvement of administration of Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ). Various strategies have been proposed for this factor in traditional testing environment. So this study proposed a Confidence Based Assessment (CBA) as a sufficient solution & want to compare the effect of CBA Scoring system with the conventional scoring systems (With & without Negative score estimation as penalty) on the students scores & estimation of thire partial knowledge on clinical knowledge.This comparative study perform by a standardized clinical knowledge exam among 117 clinical students. After 2-step training, Both of conventional MCQ and CBA exam is given in one session simultaneously. The exam has 100 questions & asked the volunteers to complete the questioner about their attitude and satisfaction in first experience on CBA after exam. A new confidence based marking system is chosen for scoring, that is a hybrid of UCL & MUK2010 systems. MCQ-Assistant, SPSS & Microsoft office Excel softwares were used for scoring & analysis of the data.Mean age of volunteers was 27.3±5.47, 43.6% of them were men & 69.2% were senior medical student. Exam reliability was 0.977. Fit line of MCQ scores without penalty estimation has a R2=0.9816, Intercept=18.125 or approximately 0.2 deviation in low scores. MCQ scoring with penalty has a fit line approximately parallel to the 45-degree line but on above it & CBA scoring fit line is a nearer to the 45-degree line, parallel to it and a little below it. These two set of scores has a significant P-Value=0.037. Response percentage to CBA is higher (P-Value: 0.0001). Discrimination power of MCQ & CBA for upper & lower 1/3 of the students was not significantly different (P-Value: 0.34). Students satisfaction was high and acceptable for CBA system and students have a positive viewpoint to this system for their examinations.CBA method can increase the competencies of the MCQ exams & it has a more fairness assessment, effective exam, authentic test, precise estimation & higher construct validity than conventional MCQ exam. CBA simulate the reflection for deeper learning among the students.