Impact of clinical teaching on students knowledge acquisition

We are in the process of curriculum revision and for that we need to know the strengths and weaknesses of the current teaching program and the venue that may need more attention. To proceed with this aim, we conducted this study.

The study was conducted on 2 groups of students rotating through nursery as a part of Pediatrics clerkship at King Faisal University, Dammam, KSA, during a 2 month study, April through to May 2001. A 15 item questionnaire was developed for testing. By using a pre-test post-test model, we looked at the scores achieved by the students on the questionnaire before and after 2 weeks of intensive clinical teaching.

In the first group of students, the mean percentage of correctly answered questions were higher in the post-test (78%) as compared to pre-test (64%), which was statistically significant, p=0.02. A similar trend was noted in the second group, the mean percentage of correctly answered questions were higher in the post-test (64%) as compared to pre-test (78%), which was also statistically significant, p=0.004.

We concluded that our method of clinical teaching followed during nursery rotation was effective in increasing students knowledge. However, attention is needed on some topics in which students are noted to be relatively weak.