Perceptions of Undergraduate Students about Three Teaching Methods; Lectures, Practical and Problem Based Learning Sessions

Abstract

From biochemical education point of view, it is so difficult to make the biochemistry more interesting by adopting one teaching method. The aim of this article is to investigate the perceptions of the undergraduate students of the department of chemistry at king Khalid university about three teaching methods; lectures, practical and problem based learning sessions. A second objective is to compare the students perceptions to their performance in three different exams depending on the information gained from the three teaching methods. 63 students were registered for the basic biochemistry course at the faculty of science- King Khalid University. At the end of the course and before the final exam, the students perceptions about the three teaching methods were investigated through a simple questionnaire composed of four best answer Questions. However, 59 students responded to the questionnaire. The questionnaire was analyzed and its results were compared to the students performance results in the three different final exams. Regarding the students perceptions about the three teaching methods; 22 students (37.3%)stated that the practical sessions were the best teaching method for them followed by the problem based learning sessions (19, 32.2%), 7 students (11.9%) preferred the lectures while 11 students (18.6%) expressed that the three teaching methods were not their favorite methods. Concerning the recalling of the information; 24 (40.6%) expressed that the information of the problem based learning sessions was easy to recall and difficult to forget followed by the information of the practical sessions (17, 28.8%) and lectures (9, 15.3%)and 9 (15.3%) stated the information of all the three methods was difficult to recall and easy to forget. The performance of the students in the final exams and their perceptions were comparable since the success percentage in the practical and problem based learning sessions and lectures were 95.2%, 82.5% and 82.5% respectively. Although the practical and the problem based learning sessions were the best teaching methods for the bulk of the students (41, 69.5%), it is better to follow more different teaching methods to satisfy the majority of the students and to obtain better student performance.