Background:
The National Medical Commission (NMC) in India has made it mandatory for medical faculties to undergo basic courses in medical education technology (BCME). Qualitative teaching to medical undergraduates ensures high standards of future medical practitioners with moral practice and ethics.
Aim:
Study aimed to evaluate First MBBS students' perceptions of the effectiveness of lectures delivered by Physiology teachers using PowerPoint (PPT) presentation and the traditional chalk and blackboard (CB) method.
Methods:
The study was conducted in the Physiology Department of the first-year MBBS medical undergraduates of the tertiary care center and medical college in Maharashtra state in 2023. A total number of 172 (85 males and 87 females) MBBS students participated in the current study. A Google sheet with the questionnaire on the two most commonly used teaching methods namely Chack and Blackboard and a PowerPoint presentation was circulated amongst them. The study aimed to evaluate their perspective towards these methods. Consent was obtained from every one of them to voluntarily participate in study. The right to withdraw was given at any stage to them. All of them were informed that the responses recorded from them were solely for academic and research purposes. Students were given the freedom to answer the questions with their viewpoints on this feedback sheet. The sheet included their choice of technique along with a set of seven questions. Responses were recorded on the scale of whether they agreed, strongly agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed.
Results:
65% (112 students) grasped the concept better with PowerPoint presentations while the remaining 35% (60 Students) students liked the conventional chalk and board method. In the PPT method, there was proper visibility of contents, the speaker's voices were audible to everyone, and concepts explained were communicated in a better manner, especially to the people seated at far distances. Whereas, in the Chack and Blackboard method majority felt that the concept was made very clear, properly understood, and easily grasped due to direct contact between students and teacher as compared to PPT. However direct eye-to-eye contact with the teacher was lacking in PPT due to the distraction of slides in between. Some students were not able to communicate with teachers in between lectures. Topics seemed to be more interesting in PPT in comparison to CCB. Students were able to draw down notes properly in both methods from an examination point of view.
Conclusion:
First-year MBBS medical students preferred PPT presentation alone or in combination with the Chack and Blackboard method. The Physiology topic was well understood, highly grasped, and qualitatively reproduced at the stages of theory and practical examination if thought by employing PPT. However, this was only the students’ perspective and was highly dependent on the role and attitude of trained faculty delivering lectures utilizing these methods.
Key words: NMC, BCME, Chack and blackboard, PowerPoint presentation
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