A new method of recording attendance improves the academic performance of medical students

Students' engagement during the collection of attendance (SEdCA) is a method where students write the answer to a question related to the topic of preceding 1-h lecture. Then, attendance is recorded by the teacher from the answer sheets. This method was introduced primarily to overcome difficulty in recording attendance from a class of high attendance. Its potential formative assessment capability has not yet been ascertained. With this background, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the application of SEdCA as a method of formative assessment on the academic performance of first-year medical students.

This interventional, uncontrolled, before and after study was conducted on 93 first-year medical students. Part completion test (PCT) scores in anatomy before the application of SEdCA was considered as the pre-intervention academic performance. Then, 1-h lectures were designed according to SEdCA for a period of 3 months. The next PCT scores were taken as post-intervention performance and compared with the pre-intervention performance using paired t-test with α = 0.05.

Ninety-three (female=38, male=55) first-year medical students with a mean age of 17.65±0.88 years participated in the study. There was a significant increase in theory (23.74±5.67 versus 26.40±5.17, t=3.31, P<0.001), practical (21.43±6.60 versus 24.08±5.16, t=6.95, P<0.001), and total (45.17±11 versus 50.47±9.17, t=8, P<0.001) scores in the post-intervention PCT.

SEdCA may be applied to enhance the academic competency of first-year medical students. However, its impact should be evaluated further in multiple subjects in students of different years of study in more institutes for a generalized result.