An assessment of students’ preference for lecture delivery methods in medical education

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the teaching preferences of lecture delivery methods among the medical students.

Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted at a private medical college in Punjab during the academic year 2012–2013. Atotal of 300 questionnaires with open and close-ended questions were distributed randomly among the students of first to final professional years after taking their verbal consent to participate. The students were asked about the different teaching methods used for their lectures, the method they preferred the most and the least, with the reasons for liking or disliking it.

Results: In all, 272 completely filled questionnaires were received back and the responses analysed according to the academic year of the respondents. The most common teaching method used in our institution was multimedia PowerPoint presentation (PPT). Transparencies were the least used method by the faculty. Respondents from all the professional years considered blackboard as the most preferred way of learning (60%), followed by PPT (21%) and combined use of board and PPT (19%). None of the students considered transparencies as the most useful method of learning. Maximum percentage of students (75%) who preferred blackboard was in the first year and minimum (40.7%) in the final professional year. Better interaction with the teacher and ease of taking notes were the important reasons for liking blackboard teaching. Fast delivery of lecture and irrelevant information made students uninterested in PPT.

Conclusion: We need to change our approach in undergraduate teaching and make it more student centred. Combined use of blackboard and animated PPT seem to be the lecture delivery method of choice.