Integrative vs. Traditional Learning from the Student Perspective

BACKGROUND The interdisciplinary surgery block of the reformed undergraduate curriculum HeiCuMed includes daily cycles of interactive case-based seminars, problem-based tutorials, case presentation by students, skills and communication training, and bedside teaching. The teaching doctors receive didactic training. In contrast, the previous traditional course was based on lectures with only two weekly hours of bedside teaching. Didactic training was not available. OBJECTIVE The present work aims at analysing the importance of active participation of students and the didactic components of the reformed and traditional curricula, which contribute to successful learning as evaluated by the students. METHOD Differentiated student evaluations of the undergraduate surgical courses between 1999 and 2008 were examined by correlation and regression analyses. RESULTS The evaluation scores for organisation, dedication of the teaching staff, their ability to make lessons interesting and complex topics easily understandable, and the subjective gain of knowledge were significantly better in HeiCuMed than in the traditional curriculum. However, the dependence of knowledge gain on the didactic quality was the same in both curricula. The quality of discussions and the ability of the teaching doctors to promote active student participation were important to the subjective gain of knowledge in both seminars and practical courses of the reformed curriculum as well as for the overall evaluation of the practical courses but not the gain of knowledge in the traditional curriculum. CONCLUSION The findings confirm psychological-educational perceptions, that competent implementation of integrative didactical methods is more important to successful teaching and the subjective gain of knowledge than knowledge transfer by traditional classroom teaching.