USING SITUATIONAL PHYSIOLOGY IN A DIDACTIC LECTURE SETTING.
Richardson, Daniel.
Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, College of Medicine,
Lexington, KY 40536-0084.
APStracts 2:0020S, 1995.
ABSTRACT
This project used the approach of Human Situations to teach the cardiovascular
system within an undergraduate physiology course (PGY 412). About 2/3 of the
students had previously taken a college level physiology course
(sophisticated) while 1/3 had not (naive). Nine didactic lectures were
organized around the common human situations of orthostasis, blood donation
and exercise. For acceptance evaluation, the students were given a
questionnaire consisting of six expectation statements (e.g., Compared to
other life science courses, I expect that I will better understand the
material), and asked to rate the degree to which the agreed with each
statement on a scale of 1 to 5. Upon completion of the lectures, the students
were given a questionnaire asking them to compare experiences to expectations.
Experiences were significantly less than expectations for naive (P < 0.05),
but not for sophisticated students. On a scale of 1 to 5, sophisticated
students preferred the situations approach more than did naive students (3.1
vs 2.4; P < 0.066). For performance evaluation, the students were given a set
of questions used by the author in a previous PGY 412 course presented by
traditional didactic lectures. There were no significant differences between
present and previous scores (77% vs 79%; P > 0.16). Furthermore, there were no
significant differences between naive and sophisticated students in
cardiovascular examination scores (P > 0.608) or in total course scores (P >
0.523). These results indicate a didactic lectures based on situational
physiology will yield a performance outcome equivalent to traditional
lectures. However, naive students may have difficulty with the procedure and
require extra attention.
Received 16 January 1996; accepted in final form 16 September 1996.
APS Manuscript Number S2-6.
Article publication pending J. Neurophysiol.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 13 November 1996