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Self-directed learning versus lecture in medicine.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Despite the predominance of large-group lecture in medical education, little research demonstrates its value over more self-directed learning. Medical students were randomly assigned either to attend lectures or not to attend lectures. Those not attending lectures were provided a weekly session to ask questions of the course director. Results on a content test showed no difference between the groups. Students in the self-directed group seldom attended the weekly sessions but liked the flexibility of the self-directed approach.

Introduction

The traditional didactic curriculum dominated by the large group lecture has a long tradition in medical education (Ludmerer, 1999). The typical medical school lecture involves as single lecturer in a large amphitheater supported by some degree of audiovisual technology such as PowerPoint. Efforts to introduce new curricular formats and instructional methods such as problem-based, self-directed learning (Barrows, 1983) have met with limited success (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993; Colliver, 2000; Vernon & Blake, 1993), and some hybrids of traditional and self-directed methods have emerged (e.g., Clough et al., 2004). In these hybrid curricula, lecture typically plays a reduced role or is completely eliminated (e.g., Crowder, Miller, Sadler, & Mohl, 1996). However, experimental tests of specific aspects of such new curricula are often lacking, specifically between lectures and more self directed alternatives.

Several relevant studies in this area have been reported. Peng (1989) experimentally compared self-directed learning with a traditional curriculum approach in a three year study. The students in the self-directed learning condition received self-learning guidelines including how to organize their own discussion sessions and had a 30-57 percent reduction in lecture hours. Over the three years, the self-directed learning groups performed equal to or higher than the students in the control groups.

Lake (2001) described an experimental study in which a lecture section of a physiology course was compared with sections in which the same content was covered using small group discussion. Results indicated that course...

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