Impact of medium of instruction during school education on the academic performance of medical students: An observational study

Abstract

Introduction: Many of the students admitted in Indian medical colleges have had school education in vernacular medium. There exists a general opinion that such students find it difficult to cope up with medical academics in English medium as they think in one language and study in another. This study was carried out to find whether such language barrier affects their professional performance. Materials and Methods: This multi-centric retrospective observational study was carried out in 274 medical students from four government medical colleges in Marathwada region of Maharashtra, India. The medium of instruction during their school education was recorded from their 10th standard mark-sheets. The marks of final year MBBS were obtained from their academic record in academic section of the colleges. The data were analysed using one-way ANOVA. Result: There was statistically no significant difference of professional performance among the medical students with different media of instruction in their school education (P=0.1149). Conclusion: Medium of instruction of school education doesn’t have any significant effect on professional performance of medical students. Keywords: Medium of instruction, Mother tongue, Language barrier, Professional performance.