Active learning in a Year 2 pathology curriculum.
OBJECTIVE
Team-based learning (TBL) has been successfully used in non-medical curricula, but its effectiveness in medical education has not been studied extensively. We evaluated the impact of TBL on the academic performance of Year 2 medical students at Wright State University by comparing this active learning strategy against a traditional method of case-based group discussion (CBGD).


METHODS
A prospective crossover design assigned 83 Year 2 medical students to either CBGD or TBL for 8 pathology modules in the systems-based curriculum. The effectiveness of both learning methods was assessed by performance on pathology-based examination questions contained in end-of-course examinations. The highest and lowest academic quartiles of students were evaluated separately. Students' opinions of both methods were surveyed.


RESULTS
No significant differences in whole group performance on pathology-based examination questions were observed as a consequence of experiencing TBL versus CBGD. However, students in the lowest academic quartile showed better examination performance after experiencing TBL than CBGD in 4 of 8 modules (P = 0.035). Students perceived that the contributions of peers to learning were more helpful during TBL than CBGD (P = 0.003).


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that TBL and CBGD are equally effective active learning strategies when employed in a systems-based pre-clinical pathology curriculum, but students with lower academic performance may benefit more from TBL than CBGD.
Koles
Paul
P
Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio 45435-0001, USA. paul.koles@wright.edu
Nelson
Stuart
S
Stolfi
Adrienne
A
Parmelee
Dean
D
Destephen
Dan
D
D000328:Adult; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010338:Pathology, Clinical / Q000193:education*; D018794:Problem-Based Learning / Q000379:methods*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*