Medical students' perception on role of audiovisual aids in didactic lectures

Abstract

Background: Medical teachers have conventionally been using different teaching methods to educate medical students. Nowadays audiovisual (AV) aids such as PowerPoint slides and animation videos are being used. The optimum use of AV aids is essential for deriving their benefits. Aims and Objective: To know the students’ preferences regarding various AV aids, with an aim to improve their use in didactic lectures for better understanding of concepts in medical science. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional and observational study was undertaken in 113 undergraduate medical students of Government Medical College, Surat, Gujarat, India. A set of questionnaire was distributed and students were directed to choose the most appropriate option as per the Likert’s scale. The responses were analyzed using SPSS 17.0. Result: Of the 113 students, 45.1% preferred the use of combination of AV aids during a didactic lecture. A total of 27.4% preferred animation videos, 15.9% preferred PowerPoint slides, and 11.5% preferred the use of blackboard. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that use of combination of AV aids is the most preferred mode of teaching by the students. For better understanding of a subject and improvement of student’s performance, a teacher should match the lectures with preferred AV aids and use them prudently. The subjects wanted animations to be incorporated frequently into medical education.