Learning Medical Terminology in a Traditional Classroom versus the World Wide Web: Is There a Difference in PA Student Performance?

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate whether there are differences in the level of learning between PA students who learn medical terminology in a traditional face-to-face setting and those who learn it in a Web-based distance education format. Method: Performance on a series of content exams taken by 41 traditional classroom-based learners and 69 Web-based learners was compared. Exam scores were analyzed in order to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference in the mean percent scores of the two learner groups. Results: There was very little difference between the distributions of scores for traditional and on-line delivery methods. In fact, a t-test showed no significant difference in the mean percent on exams for the two delivery methods Conclusion: Based on this quantitative analysis of mean percent scores, there was no difference in the level of learning of medical terminology between traditional classroom learners and Web-based distance format learners in a PA program.