Comparing the Effects of Blended Teaching and Traditional Teaching on Learning, Memorability and Satisfaction of Medical Students in an Embryology Module

Anatomical sciences are highly important in education of medical students due to their role in practice. Delivery of simple educational materials that are easily available to students have always been an interest of lecturers in this field. The present study aimed to compare the effect of blended teaching and traditional teaching on learning, memorization, and satisfaction of medical students in an embryology course in Amol medical Students, Iran.

In the present mixed method study, 50 medical students were randomly divided into two groups: educational film and control. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations were carried out. At quantitative level, midterm and final term exam results were studied and a standard checklist was used to measure satisfaction, etc. At qualitative level, information about students' views on educational videos was collected through interviews with 20 students and data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

According to quantitative data, the students in the intervention group showed significantly better results at both midterm and final exam compared to the control group (P<0.05). Also, the checklist analysis indicated the blended teaching was superior to traditional teaching and the scores of responses in intervention group were higher than the average. At qualitative analysis, effective learning was the main class extracted, which included three sub-classes of learning promotion, increasing motivation, and cognitive abilities.

Considering that this method does not cause disruption in education and can be effective in visualization courses such as embryology, it seems to be beneficial to students.