Desirability of two participatory methods of teaching, based on students' view point

Introduction: Teaching comes true at the presence of learner and learning. Teaching is not only transfer of information but also, it is an interaction between learner and teacher. Thus learner participation in teaching- learning process can be important and effective in learning. This study was performed to survey the effect of learner participation in teaching. Methods: This semi-experimental study was conducted on two groups of medical students enrolled in endocrine pathophysiology course. Teaching process for the first group was based on toutors' lectures and group discussions but this process for the second group was based on an expert student lectures and group discussions. At the end of course, both groups were evaluated by a questioner with 11 questions. Evaluation results of both groups were analysed by descriptive methods and Mann-Whitney test to compare them. Results: The results show that of 11 parts of the questionnaire, in the fields of critical thinking, participation in the discussions, criticizability and good communication with other members of the group were statistically higher in the second group (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study result showed that student participation in teaching - learning process, will increase desirability of study for students.