Lectures Replaced by Prescribed Reading with Frequent Assessment: Enhanced Student Performance in Animal Physiology

Figures & data

Table 1 Mean objective test scores in the first year of the study (2000)

Topic	Mean formative %	Mean summative %	Paired t-test (N=24)
Nerve physiology	49.9+/−1.8 (SE)	69.1+/−3.0 (SE)	p<0.001
Muscle physiology	38.5+/−3.1(SE)	58.0+/−12.7 (SE)	p<0.001
Endocrine physiology	45.7+/−1.8(SE)	65.2+/−2.4 (SE)	p<0.001

Table 2 Reported Study hours in year 1 of the study (2000)

	New material for formative test (mean + range)	Feedback and revision for summative test (mean + range)	Total study hours for week (mean + range)
Week 7	3.8 (0.5 – 11.0)		3.8 (0.5 – 11.0)
Week 8	2.0 (0.5 – 5.0)	3.1 (0.5 – 5.0)	5.1 (2.3 – 15.0)
Week 9	1.3 (0 – 5.0)	3.1 (0.5 – 6.0)	4.6 (1.0 – 10.0)
Week 10		3.4 (1.5 – 10.0)	3.4 (1.5 – 10.0)
All weeks			15.3 (6.0 – 41.0)

Figure 1 Year comparison of examination marks (percent) by topic and overall module marks (1997–2002)

Figure 2 Mean Exam Topic Marks Expressed as a Percentage of Overall Module Score. Arrows indicate Student’s t=0.06 for comparison of Nerve & Muscle scores, 1998 and 2000

Figure 3 Percentage of students choosing examination question topics for two years (1998–99) before and during (2000–01) the experiment

Table 3 Results of Cohort Survey. The scale for responses was from Strongly Agree (1) to Strongly Disagree (5) with 3 as Neutral

Statement	Mean Response
I think I have learned more from this style of teaching than with a conventional lecture-based approach.	2.33
I have done more reading of the text book than I would normally have done.	2.07
I would support a plan to present this entire module in this way, with 30% of the module marks derived from the 6 objective tests.	2.61
The questions are too factual and encourage rote learning rather than deep understanding.	3.00
The more difficult questions of the two statement type should be worth twice as many marks.	2.39
Knowing that some questions from the formative tests will appear in the following summative test is an incentive to study the feedback.	1.45
Having the formative tests available on-line, with immediate feedback, and available to revisit would be an improvement.	1.86
I like this style of learning.	2.32