Abstract

Background: Medical education in the form of didactic lectures have been often criticized on their complete efficacy and outcome parameters. Many different teaching learning methods have evolved since then. The passive way of learning is gradually changing into more of active learning of which group discussion as a pivotal role. Although practiced in small groups, this has had some positive outcomes which needs to be further strengthened particularly in teaching pharmacology, hence this study. Aims &
Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the use of didactic lectures with that of interactive group discussion in undergraduate medical teaching.
Materials and Methods: Sixty medical students were selected on a definite topic in pharmacology, traditional lecture was taken and objective test of ten questions were answered by the students. After six months same topic was selected for group discussion on the same sample of students with 6-8 students each in a group, with a designated leader and a scribe among them with a facilitator. The same objective test was given to the students. At last, positive perception questionnaire on group discussion was taken by the students.
Results: The students when in the interactive discussion group scored high (88.3%) but in lecture group (42.5%) with highly significant P value < 0.001. Also average positive perception percentage questionnaire for group discussion was 94.66%. Conclusion: We found some evidence that knowledge retention is better following an interactive group discussion than the didactic lecture. We also found that interactive group discussion are more popular than didactic lectures in undergraduate medical students.