AUSCULTATION OF THE HEART - A TRIAL OF CLASSROOM TEACHING VERSUS COMPUTER-BASED INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Declining skills in auscultation of the heart prompted an evaluation o f teaching methods for medical students. A comparison of classroom tea ching and computer-aided independent learning of auscultation was carr ied out with two groups of approximately 20 second-year medical studen ts. Both groups used approximately 20 recorded normal and abnormal hea rt sounds and murmurs, chosen to illustrate learning issues. For the c lassroom group a cardiologist presented each case through multiple ste thophones and led the discussion. The individual study group used a ne w CD-ROM collection of cases and recordings in quiz format, with a hyp ertext link to a comprehensive text on auscultation and additional rec ordings. Students were tested with 16 multiple choice and 5 open quest ions on eight selected recordings, and evaluated the teaching by quest ionnaire. The classroom-taught students scored higher on open question s than the CD-ROM-taught group, but in general performance by both gro ups was satisfactory and equivalent. Students of both groups repeatedl y had difficulty classifying regurgitant and ejection murmurs and iden tifying characteristics of the second heart sound. Both CD-ROM and cla ssroom teaching methods were highly rated by students but most student s preferred a combination.