Second Year Medical Students Learning by Teaching Pregnant Women About Physiological Changes During Pregnancy

Abstract

Classroom‐based lectures are commonly used for teaching Basic sciences in many medical schools. It is difficult to keep the students motivated to learn with only didactic lectures during the preclinical years. We need to constantly explore teaching methods to keep the learning enthusiasm consistent, improve understanding and enhance students’ performance. Studies are important to prove students' achievement will increase when active methodologies are properly applied, either in isolation or in conjunction with lectures. This study aimed to assess the performance and perceptions of Second‐year medical students who were put through an activity that included the involvement of students in educating pregnant women on physiological changes during pregnancy. At first, the students completed a pretest after the lectures on the physiology of pregnancy. Next, the students visited the Ante Natal Care Out Patient Department (ANC OPD) and educated the pregnant mothers using various teaching tools like flip charts, models, pamphlets and diagrams prepared by themselves. Then completed a posttest. In addition, feedback regarding this teaching‐learning approach was obtained from the students. The results showed that the mean (SD) scores after the activity were greater compared to before (MCQs, P‐Value 0.01, True/False questions 0.001 and combined total, <0.001). From the feedback, we found that 94.11% of the students improved their understanding of the physiology of pregnancy, 85.28% of students were positive about the motivation to learn the physiology of pregnancy and 94.2% of the students were eager to have similar activities in the future. Therefore, this active learning method not only improved understanding of the physiological concept but also increased the performance of the students and provided motivation to learn. Such learning strategies can be applied in other Biological and Biomedical sciences embracing relevant clinical scenarios.