Does team-based learning improve performance in an infectious diseases course in a preclinical curriculum?

Abstract

Objectives: To examine whether introduction of Teambased Learning (TBL) improves student learning resulting in improved performance on final examination questions and decreased failures in an infectious diseases course. Methods: To improve mastery of course content, we designed an intervention, which provided weekly TBL exercises in study years 2 and 3 to review concepts presented during didactic lectures and laboratory exercises. The remaining course structure and content was essentially unchanged. All students taking the course (n=50 in year 1, n=64 in year 2, and n=72 in year 3) participated in this study. Student final examination performance and performance on individual final examination questions were collected and analyzed for changes in response to the study intervention. Results: Addition of weekly TBL exercises improved student performance on the course final examination as demonstrated by a statistically significant increase in the distribution of correct answer percentages for questions in common between the final examinations in years 1 and 2 and between years 1 and 3 (t(99) = 3.1454, p<0.05 and t(99) = 4.1268, p<0.01, respectively; Student-Newman-Keuls). There was no statistical difference (t(97) = 0.9814, p> 0.05; Student-Newman-Keuls) in the distribution of correct answer percentages between years two and three. There was also a decrease in final examination failures in years two and three. Conclusions:The results suggest that TBL could be used to improve mastery and retention of course content in a preclinical infectious diseases course. Weekly exercises allow students to identify and ameliorate weaknesses in understanding and make adjustments early in the course.

A Novel Grading Strategy for Team‐Based Learning Exercises in a Hands‐on Course in Molecular Biology for Senior Undergraduate Underrepresented Students in Medicine Resulted in Stronger Student Performance

“…Each student on a TBL team shares the gRAT score independent of their individual contributions to the team discussion. As expected, average gRAT scores are generally higher than average iRAT scores .…”

“…Previously, we have reported success of this method in improving outcomes for poorly performing students . More recently, we have shown that TBL is an excellent predictor of student success in a first year Infectious Diseases course at our institution . We have also shown that replacement of engaged lectures with more TBL exercises in a pipeline course for underrepresented in medicine (URM) students significantly ( p < 0.01) improved performance on the final examination .…”

Team-Based Learning in a Pipeline Course in Medical Microbiology for Under-Represented Student Populations in Medicine Improves Learning of Microbiology Concepts

“…TBL has been shown to disproportionately help those students who are struggling most with course material (20). Additionally, our group has shown that the introduction of TBL exercises to a first-year medical school course improved student final-examination performance in addition to reducing the number of course failures, also suggesting that TBL mainly helps struggling students (4). Thus, we hypothesized that increased use of active learning exercises, such as TBL, would improve understanding of course content as assessed by performance on an end-of-course examination in the Medical Microbiology course of the PULSE program.…”

“…Thus, it appears that this modest incentive may have been sufficient for some to improve their performance in the TBL. Interestingly, our first-year medical students resented the grading of the Application exercise and felt that this practice increased student anxiety (4). Perhaps the use of external incentives other than grading may be a future direction for investigation into alternative ways to provide external motivation without increasing student anxiety.…”

Evaluation of the effectiveness of student learning and teacher instruction on team-based learning during quality control of diagnostic imaging

“…The research results indicate that students improved their understanding of content in TBL classes and that lower-achieving students benefited the most from this particular teaching approach [18][19][20][21]. Students reported positive feedback and performed better in groups than as individuals in TBL classes [22].…”