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The Value of Traditional Lecture in Medical Gross Anatomy
Author(s) -
Klender Sara Marie,
Notebaert Andrew
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.507.20
Subject(s) - gross anatomy , pace , recall , curriculum , value (mathematics) , mathematics education , medical education , perception , psychology , medicine , anatomy , pedagogy , mathematics , neuroscience , statistics , cognitive psychology , geodesy , geography
Traditional lecture is continuously used in the medical school curricula as it is viewed by some to be the most efficient way to convey vast amounts of material to large groups of students. However, due to the rapid pace of traditional lecture and the constraints of working memory, it is extremely unlikely that most of the information presented in a given lecture is processed by the student in any meaningful capacity. Previous studies have revealed that despite these limitations, students continue to prefer lectures and teachers continue to use them as their primary teaching method. To investigate the value of traditional lecture both from a knowledge retention standpoint and the students' perception of the lecture, a survey of medical gross anatomy students (n=50) was conducted during a standard gross anatomy lecture on the spinal nerve. Immediately following the lecture, a survey was given to the students that asked about their perceptions of traditional lecture by having them rate on a scale of 1–10 (1 being low and 10 being high) how much they felt they learned in lecture, how much lecture guides their studying, and how important it is to attend lecture. In addition to the survey, students were given a short five question quiz to assess their immediate recall of the material that was covered. The results of the post‐lecture quiz were then compared to performance on questions covering the exact same topic on the unit exam. Four of the five questions on the unit exam were identical to questions on the post‐lecture quiz. One question was changed, but still covered content from the spinal nerve lecture. The results of the survey indicated that the students perceived a relatively low level of learning during lecture (m=4.84 ± 1.7 out of a possible 10), but placed a slightly higher value on using lectures to guide studying (m=6.18 ± 2.3 out of 10) and the importance of attending lecture (m=5.96 ± 2.3 out of 10). There was a significant difference in scores on the post‐lecture assessment (m=2.36 ± 1.5 out of a possible 5) and the unit exam (m=4.47 ± 0.9 out of 5); t(46)=−9.3, p < 0.001. This study demonstrates that students see some value in traditional lecture, but maybe less than previous studies have shown. Students' immediate recall after the given lecture was poor, however, performance on the unit exam was high for similar questions. This indicates that the bulk of content learning for exam preparation was done outside of class. These findings provide more evidence that instructors should design lectures that allow for the processing of information during lecture to avoid overloading working memory and potentially increase the perception of value in the lecture experience. This can be achieved by using activities that check for understanding, such as think‐pair‐share, and providing an opportunity for students to work with content immediately after delivery. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .