Students’ Perception and Preference of Problem Based Learning During Introductory Course of a Nepalese Medical School

Abstract

Introductions: Problem based learning is considered superior to the conventional didactic teaching for contextual learning, long term retention of knowledge, development of generic skill and attitudes. This study looked in to the students’ perception and preference of problem bases learning in a sixmonth introductory course in the beginning of undergraduate medical school program. Methods: A 20-item questionnaire with four-point rating scale (1-strongly disagree, 2-Disagree, 3-Agree and 4-Strongly agree) was administered to collect first year medical students’ perception on problem based learning during first six month introductory course (June 2010 to November 2010) of first batch of medical students. The questionnaire included 13-items for perception and seven for preferences. It also had an open-ended comment section. Results: Students showed positive reaction problem based learning irrespective of gender or educational background in providing contextual learning and retention of knowledge. Students agreed that it fostered generic skills (communication, group work, critical thinking, reasoning, reflectiveness and self-directed learning). Students wished for more such sessions in more subjects with short content assessment at the end of the sessions. Conclusions: Problem based learning is fun, provides contextual learning and imparts long term retention of knowledge through students’ active participation in a small group. It also promotes generic skills and self-directed life-long learning. Plain Language Summary: The study was conducted to see the effectiveness of problem based learning (PBL) in a six-month long ‘Introductory Course’ of undergraduate medical sciences program. The study found that PBL made topics interesting and created a fun-filled learning environment. It found PBL to be effective in fulfilling learning objectives and making the contents relevant. It also showed PBL to be effective in promoting a set of generic skills and attitudes. Thus, the curricular contents presented in context through PBL can impart meaningful knowledge and a set of generic skills that are important to develop of a habit of self-directed, life-long learning. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jpahs.v1i1.13023 Journal of Patan Academy of Health Sciences. 2014 Jun;1(1):64-68

Evaluation of web-based self-assessment module administered in a medical school of Nepal

“…9 This suggested that at least 50 MCQs were required to achieve the minimum accepted internal consistency reliability of 0.70 even for self-assessment test with valid responses from 45 students or more in each organ-system blocks of PAHS-SOM. 2 Most of the students also advised to increase selfassessment MCQs and PBQs numbers and suggested to match the questions with that of the continuous endblock assessments as they found "more memory level MCQs in the self-assessment than in the end-block assessment". Based on this feedback, examination section was able to share 50 self-assessment MCQs and three self-assessment SISAQs for subsequent organsystem blocks with timely assistance from all the faculty involved in the integrated basic sciences program.…”

“…Self-directed learning is the main teaching/learning strategy of undergraduate medical education program at School of Medicine, Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS-SOM) as its courses heavily use Problem Based Learning (PBL). 2 Thus, self-assessment of knowledge is also an integral part of student assessment system to help the students to appraise depth and breadth of knowledge a priori. Consequently, Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and Problem Based Questions (PBQ) are provided to them so that they can self-evaluate their knowledge during the organ-system blocks of the hybrid PBL program.…”

Strategi Diklat Problem Based Learning Untuk Meningkatkan Kreativitas Guru Biologi Dalam Mengembangkan Alat Peraga

“…Selanjutnya, Birgili (2015) juga menyatakan bahwa strategi PBL ini merupakan strategi yang memunculkan ide kreatif dan melatihkan kreativitas pebelajar. Dalam strategi PBL, bagian penting dari proses belajar adalah mengidentifikasi masalah (Bygholm & Buus, 2009;Ghimire & Bhandary, 2014 Munandar (2009), terdiri atas: 1) memiliki rasaingin tahu; 2) selalu merasakan tantangan; 3) keberanian mengambil risiko; 4) memiliki daya imajinasi dan respons mereka pada saat mengikuti diklat.…”

Self-directed learning in undergraduate medical education

“…At the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS), PBL is a major learning method. Students' perception regarding PBL during the introductory/foundation six month course at PAHS was studied [16]. Students showed a positive reaction toward PBL and agreed that it fostered generic skills (communication, group work, critical thinking, reasoning, reflection and SDL).…”