Using student-designed cases to foster creative and critical thinking skills in biochemistry

In this novel intervention, we have tried to incorporate case-based learning with creative and critical thinking. Creative thinking indulges students to generate and apply new concepts in specific situations, seeing current situations in a new light, identifying alternative theories, and exploring new links that help generate a positive outcome. This may involve combining various hypotheses to form something original, sifting and refining ideas to discover possibilities, constructing new theories, and acting on intuition.

This is a quasi-experimental study on educational intervention. First Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students (N = 80) in their First MBBS students were randomly divided into control (n = 40) and study (n = 40) groups after they had undergone case-based learning in their first semester. The study group was asked to prepare three cases each on type II diabetes mellitus (DM), Fe deficiency anemia, and obstructive jaundice by discussion. Each case was prepared with a) an introduction consisting of presenting complaints, b) body comprising laboratory findings, and c) five questions related to the case. The cases were reviewed by a facilitator and presented to the other groups for discussion. Pretest and posttest questionnaires were collected and analyzed.

Based on the pretest scores, students were grouped as low, average, and high performers. Wilcoxon signed rank test was performed, which revealed significant improvement in the posttest scores of all students in the study group.

By designing new case histories themselves, students were able to understand the biochemical concepts of common diseases and apply these concepts in causation of diseases. Thus, case-based learning in this setting helped to foster creative and critical thinking skills of first MBBS students.