Medical students' perception about teaching-learning and academic performance at Nobel Medical College, Biratnagar, Nepal

Abstract

Background: Effective teaching-learning is an important prerequisite for academic excellence. The study was aimed at determining students’ perception about the effectiveness of teaching-learning methods and improving the academic performance. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out among 385 medical students of Nobel Medical College, Biratnagar, Nepal during February and March, 2012. The instrument used was a self-administered pretested questionnaire containing both closed and open ended questions. The questionnaire was distributed among the students and their responses were collected and entered in SPSS 11.5 for windows (Chicago Inc) for analyses. Results: Nearly two third (64%) of the students were male and majority (61%) of the students were from three zones such as Bagmati, Koshi and Janakpur of Nepal. Small group interactive discussions (64%), Problem Based Learning classes (65%) and use of multimedia were found the most effective approaches for improving the academic performance. Burden of multi-subjects (53.5%), lack of seriousness (28%), irregular study habit (17.4%) and fears of examinations (85%) were found the major causes of students’ poor performance in examinations. There were statistically significant association between gender and fortnightly class test as a factor for improving academic performance (p<0.001), use of transparency projector and power point projector as important means of teaching methods (p=0.010, 0.009) and studying many subjects as a reason for poor performance (p=0.030). Conclusion: Multimedia combined with Problem Based Learning and small group interactive discussions were found the most efficient approaches for better academic performance.