Impact of utilisation of uncompleted handouts on power point presentations (PPT) in rural Indian medical institute

Introduction: Note taking while attending a PPT requires highactivity of memory and writing process which ultimately leadsto what is called “death by power point” referring to boredomand fatigue. To overcome this we planned to evaluate the impactof utilisation of uncompleted handouts given prior to PPTpresentations.Methods: Final year MBBS students were divided in 2 batches,batch A and batch B. For a set of lectures one batch was providedwith handouts before lecture while the other batch was givenlectures only. Crossover was done to avoid bias, all the lecturesbeing given by the same presenter. At the end of each lecture, ashort questionnaire of 10 Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) wasprovided to the students. Mean scores were calculated for lectureswith handouts and without handouts.Results: For a set of lectures, when batch A was provided withhandouts, the mean score was 28.2; for batch B to which nohandouts were given the mean score was 23.4. Similarly, forbatch B when provided with handouts the mean score was 29.1,for batch A which was not provided with handouts the meanscore was 24. There was an average increase of 4.2 marks.Actual gain when handouts were provided was 1.2 marksper lecture. It was more for the batch comprising of repeaterstudents as compared to the batch of fresher students. Increasein attendance was also noted.Conclusion: Providing uncompleted handouts before a didacticlecture definitely results in increase in knowledge gain; repeaterstudents benefit more with uncompleted handouts.Keywords: Education; Medical education; Undergraduate; Lecture; Lecture notes