Medicine
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This repository contains the published and unpublished research of the Faculty of Medicine by the staff members of the faculty
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Item Exploring the impact of student-led peer assisted learning (‘kuppi classes’) on examination performance and mental, social and emotional development of medical students of a Sri Lankan medical school(Sri Lanka Medical Association, 2017) Chandrasekara, S.; Bandara, H.; Chandrasiri, N.; Choden, T.; Chandratilake, M.INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVES: Peer-assisted-learning (PAL) is the acquisition of knowledge and skills through active helping and supporting among status equals or matched companions. In ‘kuppi classes’, a local term for an informal form of PAL, students of a junior batch learn from students of a senior batch in a didactic manner. The aims of this study were: to explore the educational environment and the reasons for attending kuppi classes; to determine the correlation between attendance of kuppi classes and student performance at examinations. METHODS: The study focused on kuppi classes for preclinical subjects, the student experience of the first two years, and their performance at the second-year summative examination. Two focus group discussions were carried out with 14 medical students to identify the breadth of the issues related to each objective. The transcriptions were thematically analysed and a selfadministered questionnaire was developed based on these themes. It was administered to 178 third-year medical students. RESULTS: The qualitative component revealed that the learning environment in kuppi classes were much more relaxed and acceptable compared to formal teaching sessions. According to the questionnaire, the main reason for attendance is as a backup for formal lectures. For the tutoring student it is a revision. The attendees expect kuppi classes to be more examination oriented. However, the association between kuppi attendance and subsequent examination performance was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Didactic and informal near-peer-learning sessions may provide students with the conducive social and emotional environment to learn. However, it may not have an impact on examination performance.Item Identifying poor concordance between the 'planned' and the 'hidden' curricula at a time of curriculum change in a Sri Lankan medical school using the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure(South-East Asian Association for Medical Education, 2009) Chandratilake, M.; de Silva, N.R.INTRODUCTION: Often there is a ‘hidden’ curriculum running alongside the planned curriculum as published in official statements of a medical school. The two aspects of the curriculum may not be in concordance, especially in a phase of change. In this study Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) was used as the tool to determine the level of concordance between two curricula. METHOD: The DREEM questionnaires were administered face-to-face to two batches of undergraduate medical students of Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. One batch was the first group to follow the integrated curriculum and the other was the last group to follow the discipline-based curriculum. RESULTS: The total scores of both batches indicated a reasonably positive overall perception of the education environment, but still with considerable room for improvement. The scores of third year male students for the domains of student perception of learning and teaching were significantly lower than their female colleagues and the seniors, thus indicating where interventions should be prioritised. By analysing the responses to individual items, a collection of items which were perceived negatively by both batches of students were identified. The items represented all domains with variable degree. DISCUSSION: In addition to its multiple utilities, a careful and deep interpretation of the DREEM results can be used to identify a group affected specifically by the educational environment, possibly caused by a lack of concordance between the planned and the hidden curricula of the same institution.