Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, 401 S. Broadway, Camden, NJ, 08103, USA.
Office of Medical Education, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Camden, NJ, USA.
Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol. 2021 Sep;394(9):1941-1948. doi: 10.1007/s00210-021-02093-3. Epub 2021 Jun 7.
We have previously reported that multiple Team-Based Learning (TBL™) exercises in a 4-week pre-clinical medical school course improved final exam performance and significantly reduced the number of course failures. Here, we conducted a long-term study, with eight cohorts of first-year medical students, to determine whether the implementation of a single TBL individual readiness assessment test (iRAT) exercise in a 4-week medical school pharmacology course produces similar effects in overall course performance. We implemented a single TBL iRAT exercise that covered the subjects addressed during one week of the medical pharmacology course, with the four most recent cohorts of students matriculating at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (n = 403). The first four cohorts matriculating at CMSRU did not participate in the TBL exercises (n = 266). Correlation of individual student TBL iRAT and final examination scores in the medical pharmacology course was compared to a second, unrelated first-year course (physiology) to control for variation in student performance between cohorts. We found that there was a significant moderate correlation between final examination and TBL iRAT scores (r = 0.49, p < 0.01, n = 403). Interestingly this moderate correlation was seen in students performing in the lower 25 percentile on the course final examination (r = 0.41, p < 0.01, n = 101) and negligible in students performing in the upper 25 percentile (r = 0.11, n = 101, p > 0.05). Implementation of the single TBL exercise also significantly reduced variance or range of student final examination performance compared to the group of the first four cohorts. These results suggest that implementation of a single TBL exercise, which covers only one week of content delivered in a 1-month medical pharmacology course, benefits first-year medical students by reducing the disparity in knowledge acquisition among them and providing a means to identify students who may struggle with course content.
我们之前报道过，在为期 4 周的医学预科课程中进行多次基于团队的学习（TBL）练习可以提高期末考试成绩，并显著降低课程不及格的人数。在这里，我们进行了一项长期研究，涉及 8 个一年级医学生队列，以确定在为期 4 周的医学药理学课程中实施单一 TBL 个体准备评估测试（iRAT）练习是否会对整体课程表现产生类似的影响。我们实施了一项单一的 TBL iRAT 练习，涵盖了医学药理学课程中一周内所涉及的主题，最近的四个学生队列入读罗文大学库珀医学院（n=403）。前四个入读 CMSRU 的队列没有参加 TBL 练习（n=266）。比较了医学药理学课程中学生个人 TBL iRAT 和期末考试成绩的相关性，与第二个不相关的一年级课程（生理学）进行了比较，以控制学生在队列之间的表现差异。我们发现期末考试成绩与 TBL iRAT 分数之间存在显著的中度相关性（r=0.49，p<0.01，n=403）。有趣的是，这种中等相关性在课程期末考试成绩较低的 25%的学生中可见（r=0.41，p<0.01，n=101），而在成绩较高的 25%的学生中则可以忽略不计（r=0.11，n=101，p>0.05）。与前四个队列的学生相比，实施单一的 TBL 练习还显著降低了学生期末考试成绩的方差或范围。这些结果表明，在为期 1 个月的医学药理学课程中，仅涵盖一周内容的单一 TBL 练习的实施使一年级医学生受益，通过减少他们之间知识获取的差距，并为识别可能难以理解课程内容的学生提供了一种手段。
