Providing practical skills in curricular teaching-effect of SkillsLab and flipped classroom

Abstract

In the course of the restructuring of medical studies, practical competencies are clearly defined as learning objectives for the first time. In order to make most effective use of the short attendance time available in otolaryngology, the aim of this study was to teach practical skills with the help of flipped classroom, digital teaching, and anewly established SkillsLab. During their ENT internship, two groups of students-groupA = 93students (male n = 42, female n = 51) and groupB = 113 students (male n = 42, female n = 71)-first worked through material provided online, which explained the individual examinations. This was followed by face-to-face teaching, which consisted of observation and practical exercise of the different examination techniques. While groupA practiced on each other or on dummies, groupB used structured workstations in the ENT SkillsLab, which was newly built for this purpose. The effects on motivation and subjective competence were measured using aquestionnaire developed for this study. After working through the online material, both groups showed ahigh level of motivation and competence. On the day of face-to-face teaching, there was again in motivation and competence, which was statistically significant only in the SkillsLab group (p < 0.001). Although the SkillsLab group was inferior in terms of its subjective competence at the beginning, it was superior to the other group after the face-to-face teaching. Combination of digitized teaching in the flipped classroom with structured workstations in the setting of aSkillsLab enables more effective teaching of practical skills, which was reflected by increases in motivation and subjective competence in groupB. In particular, the presentation of all collected findings on monitors allows verification of learning success and stimulates discussion.