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Impact of e-resources on learning in biochemistry: first-year medical students' perceptions.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: E-learning resources (e-resources) have been widely used to facilitate self-directed learning among medical students. The Department of Biochemistry at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, India, has made available e-resources to first-year medical students to supplement conventional lecture-based teaching in the subject. This study was designed to assess students' perceptions of the impact of these e-resources on various aspects of their learning in biochemistry. METHODS: Sixty first-year medical students were the subjects of this study. At the end of the one-year course in biochemistry, the students were administered a questionnaire that asked them to assess the impact of the e-resources on various aspects of their learning in biochemistry. RESULTS: Ninety-eight percent of students had used the e-resources provided to varying extents. Most of them found the e-resources provided useful and of a high quality. The majority of them used these resources to prepare for periodic formative and final summative assessments in the course. The use of these resources increased steadily as the academic year progressed. Students said that the extent to which they understood the subject (83%) and their ability to answer questions in assessments (86%) had improved as a result of using these resources. They also said that they found biochemistry interesting (73%) and felt motivated to study the subject (59%). CONCLUSIONS: We found that first-year medical students extensively used the e-resources in biochemistry that were provided. They perceived that these resources had made a positive impact on various aspects of their learning in biochemistry. We conclude that e-resources are a useful supplement to conventional lecture-based teaching in the medical curriculum.

SUBMITTER: Varghese J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3353857 | biostudies-other | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Impact of e-resources on learning in biochemistry: first-year medical students' perceptions.

Varghese Joe J Faith Minnie M Jacob Molly M

BMC medical education 20120516

<h4>Background</h4>E-learning resources (e-resources) have been widely used to facilitate self-directed learning among medical students. The Department of Biochemistry at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, India, has made available e-resources to first-year medical students to supplement conventional lecture-based teaching in the subject. This study was designed to assess students' perceptions of the impact of these e-resources on various aspects of their learning in biochemistry.<h4>Meth ...[more]

PMID: 22510159

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Project description:BackgroundMedical students have access to a wide range of learning resources, many of which have been specifically developed for or identified and recommended to them by curriculum developers or teaching staff. There is an expectation that students will access and use these resources to support their self-directed learning. However, medical educators lack detailed and reliable data about which of these resources students use to support their learning and how this use relates to key learning events or activities.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to comprehensively document first-year medical student selection and use of online learning resources to support their bioscience learning within a case-based curriculum and assess these data in relation to our expectations of student learning resource requirements and use.MethodsStudy data were drawn from 2 sources: a survey of student learning resource selection and use (2013 cohort; n=326) and access logs from the medical school learning platform (2012 cohort; n=337). The paper-based survey, which was distributed to all first-year students, was designed to assess the frequency and types of online learning resources accessed by students and included items about their perceptions of the usefulness, quality, and reliability of various resource types and sources. Of 237 surveys returned, 118 complete responses were analyzed (36.2% response rate). Usage logs from the learning platform for an entire semester were processed to provide estimates of first-year student resource use on an individual and cohort-wide basis according to method of access, resource type, and learning event.ResultsAccording to the survey data, students accessed learning resources via the learning platform several times per week on average, slightly more often than they did for resources from other online sources. Google and Wikipedia were the most frequently used nonuniversity sites, while scholarly information sites (eg, online journals and scholarly databases) were accessed relatively infrequently. Students were more likely to select learning resources based on the recommendation of peers than of teaching staff. The overwhelming majority of the approximately 70,000 resources accessed by students via the learning platform were lecture notes, with each accessed an average of 167 times. By comparison, recommended journal articles and (online) textbook chapters were accessed only 49 and 31 times, respectively. The number and type of learning resources accessed by students through the learning platform was highly variable, with a cluster analysis revealing that a quarter of students accessed very few resources in this way.ConclusionsMedical students have easy access to a wide range of quality learning resources, and while some make good use of the learning resources recommended to them, many ignore most and access the remaining ones infrequently. Learning analytics can provide useful measures of student resource access through university learning platforms but fails to account for resources accessed via external online sources or sharing of resources using social media.

Project description:BackgroundPhysician decision-making and perceptions of patients are affected by a patient's socioeconomic status (SES). We sought to determine if the perceptions of first- and second-year medical students are similarly affected. We also wanted to determine whether a student's own SES affects his or her perceptions of patients from a low or high SES background.MethodsTwo similar videos of a physician-patient interview were created. One video featured a patient of apparently high SES and the other featured a patient of apparently low SES. Differences in SES were portrayed by means of clothing, accessories and dialogue. First- and second-year medical students at the University of Western Ontario were recruited to view 1 of the videos and to answer a questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale.ResultsResponses were obtained from 205 (89%) of the 231 medical students invited to participate. Respondents' perceptions of the low SES and high SES patients were significantly different in the following respects. The low SES patient was perceived to be less compliant in taking medications and less likely to return for follow-up visits; was perceived to have a lower level of social support, poorer overall health and a worse prognosis; and was perceived to be more adversely affected in his occupational duties by illness (p < 0.05). Furthermore, second-year students who watched the video with the low SES patient were less inclined to want that patient in their practice than second-year students who watched the video with the high SES patient (p = 0.032). One hundred and six students (52%) were categorized as having high SES and 37 (18%) as having low SES (the remaining students were categorized as having mid-level SES). Among students who watched the video with the low SES patient, the level of agreement with the statement "This person is the kind of patient I would like to have in my practice" was greater among low SES students than among high SES students (p = 0.012).InterpretationFirst- and second-year medical students have negative perceptions of low SES patients on several dimensions.

Project description:Students commencing their medical training arrive with different educational backgrounds and a diverse range of learning experiences. Consequently, students would have developed preferred approaches to acquiring and processing information or learning style preferences. Understanding first-year students' learning style preferences is important to success in learning. However, little is understood about how learning styles impact learning and performance across different subjects within the medical curriculum. Greater understanding of the relationship between students' learning style preferences and academic performance in specific medical subjects would be valuable.This cross-sectional study examined the learning style preferences of first-year medical students and how they differ across gender. This research also analyzed the effect of learning styles on academic performance across different subjects within a medical education program in a Central Asian university. A total of 52 students (57.7% females) from two batches of first-year medical school completed the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire, which measures four dimensions of learning styles: sensing-intuitive; visual-verbal; active-reflective; sequential-global.First-year medical students reported preferences for visual (80.8%) and sequential (60.5%) learning styles, suggesting that these students preferred to learn through demonstrations and diagrams and in a linear and sequential way. Our results indicate that male medical students have higher preference for visual learning style over verbal, while females seemed to have a higher preference for sequential learning style over global. Significant associations were found between sensing-intuitive learning styles and performance in Genetics [β = -0.46, B = -0.44, p < 0.01] and Anatomy [β = -0.41, B = -0.61, p < 0.05] and between sequential-global styles and performance in Genetics [β = 0.36, B = 0.43, p < 0.05]. More specifically, sensing learners were more likely to perform better than intuitive learners in the two subjects and global learners were more likely to perform better than sequential learners in Genetics.This knowledge will be helpful to individual students to improve their performance in these subjects by adopting new sensing learning techniques. Instructors can also benefit by modifying and adapting more appropriate teaching approaches in these subjects. Future studies to validate this observation will be valuable.

Project description:BackgroundThe transition experience into university can be challenging for health profession students as they are required to rapidly learn diverse and adaptable problem solving skills and advanced reflective thinking processes which are necessary to address complex patient-care problems, particularly in the face of uncertainty within a dynamic and rapidly evolving learning environment.MethodsA mixed-methods study was conducted to identify factors influencing this transition for first-year medical, dental, and pharmacy students at a regional Australian university. The Student Adaption to College Questionnaire (SACQ) examined participants' levels of adjustment to university, while Schlossberg's 4 S transition model was utilised in a framework analysis of the focus group and interview responses.ResultsComplete survey responses were obtained from 198 students, 17 of whom also participated in focus group discussions or interviews. Mean adjustment ratings obtained from the SACQ responses were academic (6.09 ± 1.3) personal-emotional (5.53 ± 1.55), social (6.30 ± 1.38), and institutional attachment (6.96 ± 1.6). These results indicate that the personal and emotional aspects of this transition were more challenging for the students. Analysis of the qualitative data revealed that generally, for these highly motivated health-professions students, dropping out of university was not an option and this had a positive influence on their ability to adjust to their new learning environment. Nonetheless, the transition involved role change; school-leavers were excited about their newly found independence, while for mature-aged students, returning to university allowed them to pursue their lifelong dreams. Adjustment was more challenging for international, mature-aged and female students, with personal and social factors influencing the transition for each of these demographic groups.ConclusionsTo facilitate smooth transition into university, tertiary education institutions must consider tailored on-going support strategies that promote social interaction among students with varied backgrounds and personal characteristics.

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Impact of e-resources on learning in biochemistry: first-year medical students' perceptions.

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Impact of e-resources on learning in biochemistry: first-year medical students' perceptions.

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