Comparison of medical students’ learning approaches between electronic and hard copy team-based learning

AIM: To compare the students’ perception of team-based learning (TBL): The paper (hard copy) compared with the e-copy (electronic copy) in the family medicine course of the fifth year medical students, Qassim University College of Medicine. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted during the family medicine course in 2015-2016 to compare the hard copy and the e-copy TBL sessions. We used Google drive to distribute, collect and analyze the questionnaire. The results of the e-copy TBL are shown and displayed directly with each session to the students, which was not the same as practiced with hard copy. We used also SPSS (version 17 for Windows) for more statistical analysis. RESULTS: The total number of respondents of students in each was 96; a phase of TBL phase 1 (hard copy) and phase 2 (e-copy). Male were 64 (66.7%) and females 32 (33.3%). The first three knowledge questions showed no difference between the mean score between paper and e-copy TBL, but of the perception questions showed a significant difference between the paper and e-copy TBL. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the survey showed that the students prefer e-copy TBL as a course format, as it was an attraction for most of the students and making them even more successful in the key exam and e-copy TBL develop the skills needed to work productively in task-groups.