Collaborative quiz-based teaching strategy in histology

In the present article we introduce a teaching strategy used in a histology course with first-year students in the first term of their studies at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Huanghuai University, China. Forty students were randomly divided into two sections (n=20/section). Students in the first section were taught using a collaborative quiz-based strategy (the experimental section), and students in the second section were taught using a traditional teaching strategy (the control section). To assess achievement of learning, a final examination was carried out at the end of the course. To determine students' attitudes toward the teaching strategy used, a questionnaire was conducted at the end of the term. Results showed that students preferred the collaborative quiz-based teaching strategy. The final-examination scores of students in the experimental section were significantly higher than those of students in the control section (p<.05), which indicates that the collaborative quiz-based strategy results in better performance on examinations compared to the traditional histology course.