Effective and innovative teaching methods in psychiatry for the medical undergraduates in South India: An exploratory study of teachers’ and students’ perspectives

BACKGROUND: Effective teaching methods are important in psychiatry. Previous studies have focused on the assessment of students about the effective teaching methods but not on a self-assessment by teachers. AIMS: Primary objective is to evaluate the teachers’ and students’ perspectives of effective teaching methods in psychiatry for medical undergraduates. Secondary objectives include assessment of the concordance of each item and exploring innovative teaching methods. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: A cross-sectional study design used in teachers and medical students from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore (India). METHODS AND MATERIAL: A modified teachers and medical students perspectives of effective psychiatry teaching methods were used. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Differences in continuous variable assessed with independent sample-test and categorical variables with Chi-square test. The Domain scores were divided into tertiles and the highest and lowest tertiles were analyzed. RESULTS: Both students and teachers had high perspectives on most of the teaching methods. Differences were found in items such as “using multimedia slide effectively,” “good sense of humor while teaching,” “presentation summarizes the key points,” and “presentation links ideas effectively.” Role play-based and live/simulated patient-based teachings were reported most frequently by both. Significantly, a higher proportion of the 6(th) term students and a lesser proportion of teachers were associated with the lowest tertiles for Domain 1, 2, and 3. Significantly, increased number of 8(th) term students were found in the higher tertiles in Domain 3. CONCLUSIONS: These findings have practical implications in identifying the gaps in effective teaching methods by the teachers. Teachers can improve their teaching methods by upgrading their presentation skills, employing new and innovative teaching skills.