Contribution of different activities to the learning process in the view of medical students

Abstract

To determine the extent of the contribution of different activities to the learning process in the view of students at the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, a survey was conducted on first to fourth year medical students by the analysis of a specific item in a standardized self-administered questionnaire with no identification of respondent names. Analysis of the results showed that the “Lecture” teaching method was perceived to be of medium or high importance by approximately 75% of the students in all years of the medical course. The perception of the importance of “Laboratory Class of the Basic Cycle”, decreased with the year of medical course, with the most significant modification of this profile occurring in the passage from the second to the third year. The teaching method “Clinical Activities” was massively considered to be of great importance for learning. With respect to learning methods, there was an increase in the appreciation of “Individual Study” from the second year on and a decrease in the importance of “Group Study” from the third year on. Small differences between gender were observed in terms of the perception of the importance of some items studied in different years of medical course.