Phenomenon: Attendance at UK medical school teaching sessions is on the decline. This research aimed to explore the reasons for this reduction.Approach: Attendance was assessed, by way of head counts, at 3 rd year students' lectures, tutorials and problem based learning (PBL) sessions at the University of Liverpool. Reasons for absence were explored using a questionnaire sent via email to the year group.
Findings:Compulsory lectures attained greater attendance than non-compulsory lectures. Access to PowerPoint presentations prior to lectures correlated with a decline in attendance as did long timetable gaps. Lectures held oncampus were poorly attended compared to those held at hospital sites where students undertook clinical placements. Unsupervised PBL sessions, with sign in sheets, achieved excellent attendance however, turnout was poor when monitoring wasn't present. Similar trends were observed for lecture attendance, indicating that students may be motivated to attend by fear of reprimand. 75 students responded to an online questionnaire exploring reasons for attendance and their responses largely agreed with our findings, however one discrepancy was highlighted. Students reported that access to lecture slides before teaching sessions would not affect attendance, although our evidence showed that when slides were available attendance declined.Insights: Attendance could be improved if teaching coincided with hospital placements. Sign-in sheets, fewer gaps between sessions and multiple lectures on one day would see a marked increase in attendees. In future, medical Nevins E, Moori P, Alexander L, Richards B, Bleasdale V, Sharma A MedEdPublish https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2016.000078Page | 2 schools should consider these factors to enhance student motivation to attend teaching sessions.
Background: The use of Live Audience Participation (LAP) allows students to respond to questions anonymously and receive instant feedback. Electronic devices promote interaction and participation from learners which has the potential to further engage students and lead to an increased level of learning. It is important however to evaluate the affordances and limitations of such devices.
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