Active learning in renal physiology: A students' perspective and its outcome

Abstract

Background: Active learning refers to a broad range of teaching strategies which engage students as active participants in their learning during class time with their instructor. These teaching methods are better captured, enjoyed, recalled, and understood by students. Aim and Objective: This study aims to assess the students’ perspective regarding active learning methods and to compare outcome of active learning method to previous traditional teaching methods. Materials and Methods: Teaching methods of active learning were introduced in half of the students of current year batch for the topic of renal physiology, which included student-teacher interaction, blended learning, jigsaw technique, peer discussion, pause procedure, discussion of multiple choice questions, seminars, role plays, and use of models. Result of active learning cohort batch was compared with the result of another half of students of the same batch of traditional teaching methods. Five-point Likert scale was administered to the students for feedback questionnaire comparison. Results: A significant increase (P < 0.05) was seen in the cohort with active learning methods in comparison to the traditional learning cohort. It suggested that active learning methods helped the students in better learning (84%), with interest (87%), good interaction with peers (84%), and associating the topic to clinical content (74%). Conclusion: Feedback results as well as test results from both the cohorts indicated that a change in traditional teaching methods is required for betterment of the subject, students’ understanding, development of their confidence regarding knowledge of that subject, and better student-faculty interaction.