An Evaluation of Integrated Curriculum Based on Students’ Perspective

Purpose: For medical students to have a meaningful learning experience, the curriculum must integrate what students are learning in class with the skills and knowledge required in the clinicalsetting. To satisfy these needs, an integrated curriculum (IC) has been operating at Chonnam National University Medical School since 1999. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the changes in IC students during two implementation periods, the first in 2001 and the second in 2004. This study focused on the student viewpointin order to create an authentic IC program. Methods: Questionnaires were used to evaluate the differences in the student perception of IC. The content of the questionnaire dealt with the appropriateness of time management, coherence of the content, teachinglearning method, and IC evaluation. Results: There were positive responses from the second implementation period than from the first, for almost all sub-items. However, the results showed that IC has to be reinforced by instructors teaching a coherentcontent, by using a variety of teaching-learning methods, by having the students participate actively, and by offering holistic and integrated assessments. Conclusion: The following three steps are recommended for the improvement of IC: facilitate an IC committee, develop teaching-learning methods, and guide student participation.Introduction Korean medical education is rapidly changing. One of the general changes is towards reducing the factual load in the curriculum and encouraging students to develop their own learning skills in preparation for continuing personal and professional development. To accomplish these changes, integrated curriculum (IC) has been implemented in medical education. To become meaningful learning for medical students, the curriculum has to integrate what they are learning in college with the knowledge and skills they will use in the clinical environment. IC emphasizes the integration of networked knowledge instead of segmented facts and discrete knowledge. Learners need to know how to learn and how to think in order to construct their own learning strategies (Irby & (CNUMS) has been operating IC since 1999. The purpose of this study was to review the IC results. Along with previous research on student perceptions, the current study highlights the value of student perception surveys as a part of an institution's quality assurance process. To accomplish this goal we analyzed student responses according to the implementation period: the 1 st period (2001) and the 2 nd period (2004). To analyze according to the time interval involves reviewing the changes of student perception of CNUMS IC implementation. …