Croatian implementation of a computer-based teaching program from the University of Kansas, USA

To determine whether the students enrolled in the computer-based teaching program would take the final examination in pathology earlier than those who studied according to the previous traditional program.

The study included all medical students enrolled in the pathology course at the Zagreb University School of Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia, between 1995/96 and 2000/01 academic years. In the fall of 1998, computer-based teaching program from the University of Kansas was implemented at the Zagreb University School of Medicine, with 48 of the class of 225 students (20%) randomly enrolled in the program. The remaining 80% of students of the same class were enrolled in the traditional teaching program used at the Zagreb University School of Medicine. We compared the success of these two groups of students at the final pathology examination in the first term. Following this initial observational period, all students in the next two years (1999/00 and 2000/01), were enrolled in the computer-based teaching program. Pass rates of these students at the final examination taken in the first term were compared with the pass rates of students who studied according to the traditional teaching program during the period from 1995 to 1998.

In 1998, 58.3% of students from the computer-based teaching program group chose to take the final examination in the first term, compared with only 32.2% of students from the traditional teaching program group (chi(2) (1)=10.97, P<0.001). Students in the computer based program had better final examination mean scores (-/+ standard deviation) than students in the traditional program (81.9-/+9.8 and 73.3-/+14.2, respectively; t=2.908, P=0.005). Upon the implementation of the computer-based teaching program for the entire class in 1999 and 2000, the number of students taking the final examination in the first term increased more than we expected on the basis of the data from the academic years 1995 to 1998 (chi(2) (5)=39.60, P<0.001).

The computer-based program introduced at the Zagreb University School of Medicine in 1998 had a positive effect on medical students, as evidenced by the fact that more students chose to take the final pathology examination in the first term and more of them passed the examination in the first attempt than those in the traditional teaching program.