Developing & Evaluating Collaborative Medical Physics Module for the First Year Medical Students at College of Medicine & Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University Kingdom of Bahrain PDF

Keywords

Collaborative Learning; Blended Learning, Learning Management System; Medical Physics; Satisfaction with learning, and Attitudes towards Medical Physics.

Abstract

Collaborative learning is emerging as an important learning method. It is an educational approach for teaching and learning; that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. This paper describes a comprehensive approach in collaborative inquiry of medical physics at College of Medicine & Medical Sciences (CMMS) Arabian Gulf University (AGU). The collaborative module comprises: an interactive medical physics WebCT virtual learning environment that provides students with shared workspaces for coordinating and recording their collaboration in scientific inquiry; inside and outside field visits carried out collaboratively by each subgroup and the tutor. Medical physics diagnostic and application dialogue (learning problems) and Web-based materials are designed to match and enrich the module. The individual and group assessments given to students guide their learning process, and help them to scientifically report and evaluate their collaboration inquiry experiences. The main aim of this work was to redesign the medical physics module at the AGU and contribute in shifting the learning process from a teacher-center to a learner-center activities and support learner-learner interaction, learner-content interaction, and learner-tutor interaction to a degree that facilitate deep learning and fulfill satisfaction with learning. The results indicate that collaborative learning enabled the participants to communicate easily with their teachers (resource people, tutors and professors) and their peers searching for answers for themselves. In addition, the participants were able to assess their own expertise, resulting in the enhancement of knowledge, skills, attitudes and satisfaction with learning. Concerning achievement in medical physics; data analysis results revealed no significance differences related to treatment type (collaboration, no collaboration) or the gender of the experimental group participant`s (male, female). A remarkable result was that participants who were taught through collaborative approach scored significantly more gain in achievement (M = 15.1289, SD = 16.84061) than the control group that did not use collaborative approach (M = 6.1225, SD= 21.26310), t(290) = -4.023, p < .05. i.e. collaborative approach for teaching medical physics prove its strength in empowering subjects gain development in achievement. Further research on more courses is needed to cross validate the study findings and generalize the results. Attached an appendix titled “X-Ray and Medical Diagnostic Dialogue”.