Are recorded lectures suitable for medical students?

Abstract

Background: During the Covid -19 lockdown, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Balamand adopted the Webex platform to deliver the lectures live for the students. All lectures were also recorded and posted. This study compares the results of students who attended the live online lectures with those who only reviewed the recordings of the lectures, taking the previous year’s rank into consideration. Method: We retrieved attendance data of Med 2 students and their grades for 7 modules. We also had access to the previous year’s rank as predictor of outcome. The students had two types of exams, the standardized NBME questions and in-house questions prepared by the lecturers. The students rank from the previous year was used to divide the students into the top 20%of the class, the lower 20% and the rest. Analysis to assess the impact of attendance on outcome was made for the two types of exams, and for the different groups of students.Results: Our analysis shows a significant correlation between the two types of questions, and a significant correlation between attendance and the previous years’ rank. Also for all the groups, attendance had a significant contribution to the outcome, more significant among the top students and the bottom of the class students.Conclusion: This study shows the importance of attending lectures even if they are online, not only for the poor performing students but also for the top 20%. Recorded lectures may be a beneficial adjunct but not a replacement of live lectures, at least for now.