12. Challenges and Difficulties Associated with Physiology Learning in Undergraduate Medical Students in Integrated Curriculum
Sadaf Fatima1, Syed Tousif Ahmed2, Shazia Hashmat2, Haider Abbas3, Zahra Safiuddin3 and Kevin Borges4
ABSTRACT
Objective: To find out the difficulties and challenges associated with learning of Physiology in undergraduate medical students in integrated curriculum.
Study Design: Cross sectional study.
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the Ziauddin Medical College, Ziauddin University, July 2017 to June 2018.
Materials and Methods: The study participants included 1st, 2nd, 3rd year medical students. There were 147 MBBS students in this study. A questionnaire was distributed to each student. The questionnaire included 23 items from why is Physiology hard for students to learn? It included items related to subject, teaching and learning of Physiology. The medical students were asked to select a response for each item on likert scale from 1 to 5. The Physiology learning responses were compared between 1st, 2nd & 3rd MBBS students.
Results: The medical students thought that characteristics of discipline including well defined syllabus (90.7%), understanding of physiological phenomena (88.8%), and use of scientific terms (89.3%) were more important aspects. Regarding the teaching factors including integration (84%), use of active learning methods (81.7%), use of graphs and flow charts by teachers (80%), teachers’ response to student questions (88.4) were found to be more important. In relation to student learning important factors was rote learning than understanding (92%), time commitment (83.6%), and not taking guidance from other students (80.4). The comparison was done between MBBS 1st 2nd and 3rd year medical students. A significant difference was found in factors including basic concepts (0.01), passing exams by using short books (0.01) and integration (0.002).
Conclusion: The medical students provided perspective regarding the difficulties in learning physiology and the reasons of these difficulties.
Key Words: Physiology, Teaching, Learning, Integrated Curriculum
Citation of article: Fatima S, Ahmed ST, Hashmat S, Abbas H, Safiuddin Z, Borges K. Challenges and Difficulties Associated with Physiology Learning in Undergraduate Medical Students in Integrated Curriculum. Med Forum 2020;31(12):53-58.