Premium
Faculty opinions about a revised pre‐clinical curriculum
Author(s) -
Tavanaiepour Daryoush,
Schwartz Peter L,
Loten Ernest G
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01153.x
Subject(s) - curriculum , medical education , context (archaeology) , perception , medicine , relevance (law) , scale (ratio) , problem based learning , medical school , psychology , pedagogy , political science , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , law , biology
Medical schools having innovative curricula have been encouraged to ascertain the levels of satisfaction of faculty members with the curriculum. Faculty at schools that employ problem‐based learning (PBL) have been shown to have positive perceptions, but not all schools are in a position to adopt PBL on a large scale. This study sought to determine faculty members' opinions about a new curriculum that is less ambitious than one utilizing true PBL. Context and setting Since 1997, the University of Otago Medical School (Dunedin, New Zealand) has had an integrated, modular pre‐clinical curriculum that emphasizes clinical relevance. It has proved popular with students. This study focused on faculty members' impressions. Methods We surveyed faculty members' opinions with a questionnaire identical to one used in studies at PBL schools. Faculty compared the students and their own levels of satisfaction in the old and new curricula on 7 to 10 items. The overall response rate was 85·4% (152 of 178). Results Perceptions of the new curriculum were positive among teachers who taught during the pre‐clinical years and those who taught the students only after they reached the clinical years. Results for individual questions were in the same direction and generally similar in magnitude to those reported on identical items for PBL. Conclusion We conclude that a hybrid curriculum that is more acceptable to many traditional teachers and students than is PBL has almost as great a positive effect on faculty members' perceptions of students' abilities and of the curriculum as does PBL.