Impact of multimedia as a teaching tool on the performance of the 1st year MBBS students for academic achievements in India

Background: There are various methods of teaching adopted by teachers/professors in medical colleges to deliver the lectures to the students. The present study aimed to find out the impact of multimedia as a teaching tool on the performance of the 1st year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students for academic achievements. Methods: This was a Quasi-experimental study, conducted for three months (April to June 2016) at Muzaffarnagar Medical College, Muzaffarnagar, India.Total of 150 students of the 1st year MBBS were recruited for this study and two groups were formed (i.e. Group I and Group II). Each group included 75 students. Group I were taught by a traditional way of teaching and Group II were taught by using multimedia. Two tools were used viz, pre and posttest based on MCQs to assess the impact of multimedia on students’ academic achievement. After taking the post-academic test, both groups were rotated i.e. in group I, lectures were delivered by using multimedia and in group II, lectures were delivered by the traditional way of teaching in order to get feedback from all 150 students to know the better way of teaching method.  Results: There was no significant difference in the average marks obtained by students between Group I and II (18.73±3.39 % vs. 18.8±3.76 %) before delivering lectures to them. However, after delivering the lectures, the average mark obtained by the students of Group II was found to be significantly higher as compared to Group I (70.78±12.01 % vs. 49.33±9.75 %). Conclusion: The use of interactive multimedia tool found to be more effective for presenting the information than the traditional way of teaching.