** Poster Award Nominee
IMPACT OF TEAM-BASED LEARNING ON SECOND-YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE ON PATHOLOGY-BASED EXAM QUESTIONS
Paul Koles*, Adrienne Stolfi, Stuart Nelson, Dean Parmelee, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 U.S.A.
Purpose
The impact of team-based learning (TBL) upon academic performance has not been extensively evaluated. Observations lead us to hypothesize that TBL is associated with two performance outcomes: (1) higher performance on exam questions related to TBL content than on questions unrelated to TBL content, and (2) greater benefit for students in lowest academic quartile than for those in highest academic quartile.
Methods
Performance of 91 students on 13 major examinations was reviewed. Of 1290 examination questions, 352 were classified as pathology-related exam questions (PREQs). All PREQs were divided into two groups: (1) TBL-related questions (TR), examining content related to a TBL module, and (2) TBL-unrelated questions (TU), examining content conceptually unrelated to a TBL module. Students’ scores on TR vs. TU questions were compared (paired t-tests). Highest vs. lowest quartile students’ scores on TR vs. TU questions were also compared (two-way ANOVA).
Results
All students performed 7.8% higher on TBL-related PREQs than TBL-unrelated PREQs (p < 0.001). Lowest quartile students scored 9.1% higher on TR than TU questions, while highest quartile students scored 7.2% higher on TR than TU questions. This difference between academic quartiles is significant only at the p = 0.221 level.
Conclusion
Performance by second-year medical students on PREQs related to a TBL module is significantly higher than performance on PREQs unrelated to a TBL module. While there is a measurable tendency for lowest academic quartile students to benefit more from TBL than students in highest academic quartile, this tendency is not statistically significant.