Abstract

Background: Lectures are still the main stay of teaching, particularly in medical colleges in view of the fact that the sizes of the classes are increasing day by day, and there is a dearth of teachers to care them in small batches. Therefore, new researches are necessary to improve lecture outcome and to make the lectures more useful. A new method of improving lecture outcome in the Physiology Department of MGM Medical College, Bihar, India, has been studied. In this method, a short questionnaire is given before and after the lecture on the lecture topic.
Objective: To identify effective teaching methods for the large class environment.
Materials and Methods: The whole class of first-year students was divided into two equal batches randomly. In the first batch, a short multiple choice questionnaire was given at the beginning of the lecture covering the lecture topic. The same questionnaire was given to both the batches at the end of the lecture. Then, the results were compared.
Results: The result showed that there was a significant improvement in lecture outcome in the batch that was given a prelecture test. The difference was statistically significant. The average marks obtained by the students in initial exami- nation of all the 6 days of the first batch were only 4.87 ± 1.48 of 20. At the end of the class, the marks improved notably in that batch, which was, on average, 15.40 ± 2.50 of 20. However, the second batch, which received only one final examination, received average marks 10.10 ± 2.12 of 20, which was higher than the initial examination of the first batch but significantly lower than the final examination results of the first batch ( p < 0.005). Conclusion: This small experiment within the limited background proves that a short pretest on the lecture topic before lecture improves the lecture outcome. However, more elaborate experiments on a greater number of people with more convincing randomization are required to achieve a definite conclusion.