Effectiveness of case-based teaching of physiology for nursing students

Abstract

Case-based teaching is a relatively new approach to teaching basic sciences. Although this technique has been used in medical teaching for many years, few attempts have been made to examine its efficacy for nursing students. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of didactic and case-based teaching of physiology among second-year nursing students at our college. A descriptive cross-over study was conducted, in which the students served as their own controls, as they were examined after each of two sessions. In the first session, the students were taught digestive physiology by traditional lectures. In the second session, the same students were taught renal physiology by the same instructor using a case-based technique. Multiple-choice questions were used to assess each student's comprehension after each session and compared. At the end of the two sessions, students evaluated the teaching method on a questionnaire. Paired t tests were used to analyse differences. The performance in tests was statistically significantly better after didactic lectures (mean, 17.53) than after case-based teaching (mean, 16.47) (two-tailed p = 0.003). However, 65–72% of students found that case-based teaching improved their knowledge about the topic better than lectures. Significantly better examination performance was observed after didactic teaching, but the students' feedback indicated that case-based teaching could be used as an alternative to lectures and may facilitate skills acquisition, which is considered to be important in professional problem-solving during nursing care.

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