The Effect of Changıng the Method of Teachıng Radıology to Problem-Based Learnıng on the Achıevements of Medıcal Students in Imagıng

Purpose:
We aim to evaluate the efficacy of changing teaching methods in the 4^th year medical school radiology course from lecture-based teaching to interactive clinical case-based teaching.

Material & Methods:
We compared the assessments in the radiology course taken from 4^th year medical students during 2018-2019. In the first year, teaching was primarily done via conventional lectures. In the following year, a case-based teaching with interactive web application named “NEARPOD” were employed to motivate student participation. The student knowledge assessments were comprised of identical post-test questions, encompassing 5 images of common diagnoses such as pneumothorax, pneumonia, normal chest X-ray (CXR), subdural hematoma, and ischemic stroke. We also compared pre- and post-tests taken in the later year, similarly, composed of 5 different images of common radiographic diagnoses.

Results:
72 students answered the post-test in the first year and 50 students answered in the following year. 55 students answered the pre-test in that year. Post-test student achievements following the methodological changes were significantly higher as compared with the control group (p <0.001, table 1). Students provided positive feedback to the methodological teaching changes.

Conclusion:
Our study shows that teaching radiology in a clinical case-based manner combined with web-based interactive applications results in significant improvements specifically in identifying key imaging pathologies, as compared to conventional lecture-based teaching.

Table 1