Effects of a quasi-experimental study of using flipped classroom approach to teach evidence-based medicine to medical technology students

Hsien-Li Huang,Huey-Ling You,Steve Leu,Mao-Meng Tiao,Chia-Pei Chou,Chih-Hung Chen

doi:10.1186/s12909-020-1946-7

Abstract

BackgroundFlipped classroom is known to improve learning efficiency and to develop one’s ability to apply high-level knowledge. To investigate the effect of flipped classroom approach on teaching evidence-based medicine to medical technology students, we conducted a tailor-made six flipped classroom based EBM courses for medical technology students.MethodsThis study adopted a qusai-experimental design with 62 medical technology interns as the research object. Students in the experimental group attended the flipped classroom course, while students in the control group attended the traditional course. The learning outcomes were evaluated by Fresno test in both groups. Furthermore, to understand student’s perceptions on the flipped classroom approach, students in the experimental group were required to fill in a satisfaction survey and answer some open-ended questions.ResultsThe Fresno test scores of the experimental group were significantly higher than that of the control group. From the results of the satisfaction survey, we know that students were satisfied with this course format. Students claimed that the flipped classroom approach could improve their learning efficiency and the interactions with teacher could help them to think more deeply.ConclusionsTo conclude, most students showed positive attitudes and views on flipped classroom strategy. Moreover, students’ questions were solved more effectively during class resulting in an improvement of effectiveness of evidence-based medicine trainings.

Highlights

Flipped classroom is known to improve learning efficiency and to develop one’s ability to apply highlevel knowledge
The main difficulties in teaching Evidence-based medicine (EBM) to medical technologists are that most of the courses are traditional lecturestyle teaching and there is a limited amount of literature focused on laboratory diagnostics in the medical databases
Design Quasi-experimental designs [22] were applied to understand whether the implementation of the flipped classroom approaches affects the learning efficiency of EBM

Summary

Introduction

Flipped classroom is known to improve learning efficiency and to develop one’s ability to apply highlevel knowledge. To investigate the effect of flipped classroom approach on teaching evidence-based medicine to medical technology students, we conducted a tailor-made six flipped classroom based EBM courses for medical technology students. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a combined knowledge of clinical problems, patient’s values, research evidences and clinical experiences [1]. Studies suggested that it is necessary to provide EBM trainings to medical technologists allowing them to develop problem-solving skills and to integrate knowledge for other medical staffs as inspection consultation or interpretative comments [6]. Several hospitals in Taiwan, the Taiwan Evidence-Based Medicine Association, and the Taiwan Society of Laboratory Medicine are offering EBM courses to medical technologists. The main difficulties in teaching EBM to medical technologists are that most of the courses are traditional lecturestyle teaching and there is a limited amount of literature focused on laboratory diagnostics in the medical databases. When EBM is combined with clinical case practicing as a blended-learning model, a considerable improvement in knowledge, skill acquaintance, and learning attitude is observed [8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion