Infusing the teaching of critical thinking into undergraduate medical education: lessons learned from a three–year longitudinal study
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Abstract
Introduction: A glance at the medical curriculum process reform o in the recent years indicates a tendency to strengthen critical thinking skills as an essential component of the health care team members’ performance. Regarding this, for the first time at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, teaching of critical thinking as a longitudinal integrated course was included in undergraduate medical curriculum.
Methods: We formed a committee for preparing the first draft of critical thinking program for reformed undergraduate curriculum. The model was a combination of active learning strategies, practice worksheets and pre-reading texts. First, a group of faculty members and a number of students evaluated the draft. Then, a pilot session with participation of second-year medical students was held. During this session, facilitators practiced to attend small groups according to the guidelines. In the end, we applied the revised program to 159 second-year medical students. Each session included pre-reading of the contents, conducting mini interactive lectures, solving worksheets, summarizing the golden points and providing feedback. Finally, survey forms were provided to students to determine the level of their satisfaction with the educational program.
Findings: Total number of 159 medical students participated in this study (%48.2 female and %51.8 male). In the evaluation phase, 47.1% of students stated that the relevancy of prepared texts was good and 39.9% of students evaluated them in average level. In regards to coordination of the worksheets with educational content, 68.3% completely agreed and 27.3% neither agreed/nor disagreed. 62.6% of students agreed on the fact that thoughts were challenged by the worksheets.
Conclusion: the results of the study showed that using interactive methods such as question and answer technique, small group teaching strategies, worksheet, etc. could be useful to learn critical thinking skills.
Article Details
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