Students' Perception of an Integrated Quiz in a Malaysian Medical University

Context: Improvement in the quality of teaching has been one of the important items on the agenda of curriculum development in most medical schools in Malaysia. Active teaching strategies are designed to make the learning process more interesting and thought provoking. Aims: To study the students' perception of an integrated quiz as a teaching-learning activity. Materials and Methods: An integrated quiz was conducted among 2nd year medical students in a Malaysian University. The quiz comprised questions on anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, parasitology and nutrition. There were 8 teams, and four rounds with the four levels of questions according to Bloom's taxonomy were given. The students were divided into two groups. Group A consisted of students who participated in the quiz and Group B formed the audience. The perception of the students on the integrated quiz was assessed by administering a structured questionnaire of 20 questions and using a Likert-type scale. The respondents indicated their perception as scores; 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for options of strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree and strongly disagree respectively. In addition to the above scale, the students were given the option to give their comments and suggestions related to the session. The mean scores for each item were calculated and a comparison of the two groups made. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-test. Results: A total of 103 students participated in the study. There were more females than males in both groups. The mean perception score for Group A and Group B was 3.3 +/- 0.2 and 3.5 +/- 0.3 respectively. When the mean scores were compared, a statistically significant result was revealed. The overall ratings for the quiz by both groups were good. Conclusions: We found that Group B had a more positive response towards the integrated quiz as an active learning technique than Group A.