Role play, a teaching strategy for psychiatry – students’ comparative perspective versus traditional teaching

Abstract Teaching process is undergoing innovations in medical education. Objective: The current survey study was designed to compare the effectiveness of conventional teaching methodology against role play method, as perceived by medical students. Methods: A questionnaire based survey research was conducted on the final year medical students at Majmah University, KSA in two settings during psychiatry module. First setting was when suicide was being taught and secondly when violence was being covered. At both settings the students were divided in two batches respectively, study and control using simple random technique. The control group was taught with a conventional methodology and the study group taught via role play method primarily. A questionnaire pertaining to students’ level of satisfaction regarding different aspects of learning process was given to the participants at the end of each teaching session. The response of the control and study groups in both settings was analyzed statistically applying chi square test. A p value of 0.05 or less was taken as significant. Results: In both settings the students of the control group significantly rated conventional teaching more interactive as compared to the role play. Also doubts clarification was more in the control group in the setting of suicide theme. Rest of the results, did not show any significant difference between the two modalities. Conclusion: It is concluded that although change in curricula is the need of the time, still students’ feedback is essential. If conventional teaching is adopted with a student centered approach, it can be equally Continuous....