Department of Community Health, Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, 290J White Hall, Dayton, OH 45435-0001 USA.
Perspect Med Educ. 2012 May;1(2):92-7. doi: 10.1007/s40037-012-0014-3. Epub 2012 Apr 28.
Medical schools universally accept the idea that bioethics courses are essential components of education, but few studies which measure outcomes (i.e., knowledge or retention) have demonstrated their educational value in the literature. The goal of this study was to examine whether core concepts of a pre-clinical bioethics course were learned and retained. Over the course of 2 years, a pre-test comprising 25 multiple-choice questions was administered to two classes (2008-2010) of first-year medical students prior to the start of a 15-week ethics course, and an identical post-test was administered at the end of the course. A total of 189 students participated. Paired t tests showed a significant difference between pre-test scores and post-test scores. The pre-test average score was 69.8 %, and the post-test average was 82.6 %, an increase of 12.9 % after the ethics course. The pre- and post-test results also suggested a shift in difficulty level of the questions, with students finding identical questions easier after the intervention. Given the increase in post-test scores after the 15-week intervention, the study suggests that core concepts in medical ethics were learned and retained. These results demonstrate that an introductory bioethics course can improve short-term outcomes in knowledge and comprehension, and should provide impetus to educators to demonstrate improved educational outcomes in ethics at higher levels of B.S. Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning.
医学院普遍认为，生物伦理学课程是教育的重要组成部分，但在文献中，很少有研究测量其教育价值（即知识或保留）。本研究的目的是检验临床前生物伦理学课程的核心概念是否被学习和保留。在 2 年的时间里，在一门为期 15 周的伦理学课程开始之前，向两个一年级医学生班级（2008-2010 年）发放了一份包含 25 个多项选择题的前测，并且在课程结束时发放了相同的后测。共有 189 名学生参加。配对 t 检验显示前测分数和后测分数之间存在显著差异。前测平均得分为 69.8%，后测平均得分为 82.6%，在伦理学课程后增加了 12.9%。前测和后测结果还表明问题难度水平有所变化，学生在干预后发现相同的问题更容易。鉴于 15 周干预后后测分数的增加，研究表明医学伦理学的核心概念得到了学习和保留。这些结果表明，入门生物伦理学课程可以提高知识和理解方面的短期学习效果，并且应该促使教育工作者在更高层次的 B.S.布鲁姆教育目标分类学中展示伦理教育的改进成果。
