Exploring Teaching Reform in Medical English Courses with a Questionnaire Survey under the Background of "New Medicine"

Abstract

Background: In 2017, the School of Basic Medicine at Hubei University of Arts and Science offered a course in English for Medical Purposes (EMP) for the first time. Under the background of new medical science, the EMP curriculum and teaching at medical schools should focus on cultivating composite interdisciplinary medical talent in the new era. According to the feedback of teachers and students, the need for EMP teaching reform is urgent.Methods: Based on our design and investigation of electronic questionnaires, the curriculum suggestions and evaluations of students in different majors and stages were continuously counted to put forward reform measures and explore segmented teaching reform. Pearson chi-square analysis and a two-sample T-test were used to determine whether student performance has shown significant improvement before and after the extant and proposed reforms. Meanwhile, multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to reveal the impact of teaching factors on the teaching effect of the outcome variables.Results: The pre-reform curriculum problems were mainly the closeness of teaching content and the cultivation of ability objectives, the fit between teachers' professional knowledge and their teaching content, and the lack of scientificity in the assessment methods. Therefore, the teaching content and form adjustment implemented from 2016 to 2018 and during 2019 have focused on the reform of comprehensive ability evaluation, based on the previous stage. With the progress of this process, students' EMP learning attitude has become positive, and students' performance levels have significantly improved compared with those from before the reform. The second stage of the reform has also achieved significantly better results than those before the reform. Teaching content, form, class hours, and comprehensive ability indicators are positively correlated with students' excellent results.Conclusions: This course has been reformed and achieved remarkable results via the following: reducing class hours, increasing the integration and application of professional knowledge, placing students at the centre of the participatory teaching method, applying the situational, heuristic, and project-driven teaching methods, flipping classrooms, etc. These measures have students' abilities through the application of the comprehensive evaluation model, significantly augmenting the teaching effect.