title: Impact of some low-cost interventions on students' performance in a Nigerian medical school.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Students' poor performance in physiology examinations has been worrisome to the university community. Reported preference of peer-tutoring to didactic lectures at the University of Nigeria Medical School has not been investigated.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this work is to design/implement low-cost interventions to improve teaching and learning of physiology.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a postintervention retrospective review of medical Student's performance in 2 nd Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery examinations physiology. Data were collected and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics using the MedCalc Statistical software (Turkey). The odds ratio (OR) was used to determine the chances of passing before and after the intervention. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 2152 students sat for the professional examination over the study period, and 1485 students passed the examination at first attempt giving an overall pass rate of 69%. The pass rate from 2008 when our interventions started was significantly higher than the pass rate before this reform (OR: 0.53; 95% confidence interval: 0.43-0.64; P < 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results support the engagement of teachers with strong translational interests and clinicians to augment existing faculty in basic sciences, innovative alternatives to passive lecture formats and students involvement in program evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Enugu, Nigeria.
authors.forename: U B
authors.initials: UB
authors.lastname: Anyaehie
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Okeke
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Nwagha
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Orizu
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Iyare
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dim
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Okafor
mesh_terms: D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D009549:Nigeria; D010827:Physiology / Q000193:education*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013663:Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration*