Teaching by concordance: Individual versus team-based performance

ABSTRACT

Clinical competence is multi-dimensional and must be acquired by all medical students. Accordingly, a prospective quasi-experimental study was conducted to evaluate the merging of script concordance testing (SCT) and team-based learning (TBL) as a teaching/learning approach for medical students in clinical settings. The study comprised three phases: Phase 1 (preparatory phase) involved students’ preparation and preparation of the SCT. In Phase 2 (implementation phase), the individual and team SCT (iSCT and tSCT, respectively) were applied. In Phase 3 (evaluation phase), the score results were compared, and students’ feedback was obtained. The SCT/TBL approach improved the clinical reasoning skills of the students in some vignettes, and the tSCT helped those achieving lower marks improve their performance. The approach supported discussions and helped students correct their mistakes and improve their problem-solving and reasoning skills. The SCT/TBL approach improved students’ performance, especially that of those achieving lower marks.

KEYWORDS:

• Script concordance testing
• team-based learning
• clinical reasoning
• instructional approach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval and consent to participate and publish

All the students participated voluntarily in the study, and the purpose of the study was communicated to them. They had the right to refuse to participate in or withdraw from the study at any point without any consequences. Informed consent to participate and publish was obtained from all the participants included in the study. Approval from the Research Ethics Committee, Faculty of Medicine at Suez Canal University was obtained before any data was collected. The study was performed following the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments and incomparable ethical standards.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in abouzeid, enjy, 2021, ‘Team-based script concordance test’, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/8PGSK8, Harvard Dataverse. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/SCT

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.

Notes on contributors

Enjy Abouzeid

Enjy Abouzeid: BSc, MSc, Medical Doctorate, University of Leeds and FOMSCU. She is a Lecturer in the Medical Education Department. She is working as a Vice President of the assessment and evaluation unit in FOMSCU. She is a Faculty in the Diploma of Health Professions Education program (DHPE).

Moataz A. Sallam

Moataz A. Sallam: MD, MRCSEd (Ophth), FICO, DHPE is an undergraduate and postgraduate teaching coordinator and a member of the course planning committee. He is the clinical director and consultant of Ophthalmology at Suez Canal University medical school and teaching hospitals