Impact Of E-Learning On Student Engagement And Performance In Clinical Microbiology: A Comparative Study
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Abstract
It is essential for medical undergraduate students to have Clinical Microbiology as a key building block in their studies. Learning about microbiology and using it in practical ways is often hard for students. This study aims to assess how students use the new e-learning tool and what effect this has on their answers in Clinical Microbiology. The new educational material hosted online contributed useful knowledge to the classroom learning in an undergraduate Fundamentals of Clinical Microbiology course. The 2017/2018 group could use e-learning resources apart from the 2016/2017 students who did not use them. The research assigns two types of scores, multiple-choice (MCQ) and short-notes (SNQ), to students in each group after they use the online resource to complete their work. There were two groups in the module, with students from both parallel levels starting together. Over 200 out of the cohort attending in 2017/2018 interacted with the educational material at 80%+ engagement during that period. On average, students devoted more time looking up pathogen information in the index and examining clinical case studies that covered many important clinical microorganisms. The test scores in MCQ and SNQ showed there was an important statistical difference with the 2017/2018 cohort scoring higher than the 2016/2017 group. Average scores for the 2017/2018 students were 5.57% higher than the MCQ exam (95% CI: 3.92 to 7.24%; P < 0.001) and 2.08% higher than the SNQ exam (95% CI: 0.74 to 3.41%; P = 0.02). Because previous scores were not a big factor, increasing online engagement rate by 1% resulted in an average improvement of 0.05% (between 0.02 and 0.08) on the SNQ exam. According to the research, e-learning improves the chances of students getting better marks in their exams.
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References
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