The effect of online and in-person team-based learning (TBL) on undergraduate endocrinology teaching during COVID-19 pandemic

Shafeena Anas; Ioannis Kyrou; Mariann Rand-Weaver; Emmanouil Karteris

doi:10.1186/s12909-022-03173-5

The effect of online and in-person team-based learning (TBL) on undergraduate endocrinology teaching during COVID-19 pandemic

Shafeena Anas, Ioannis Kyrou, Mariann Rand-Weaver^*, Emmanouil Karteris

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aston Medical School

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Team-based learning (TBL) combines active and collaborative learning, while incorporating aspects of the flipped classroom approach and problem-based learning. The COVID-19 pandemic presented certain challenges in the delivery of TBL in class. In this study, we investigated the impact of TBL on the academic performance of final year Biomedical Sciences' undergraduate students in the context of an "Endocrine Disorders" study block. We did so by comparing the classical in-person approach and online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS: A non-compulsory TBL session was introduced to the curriculum of this block, which followed the traditional 2-h lecture delivery. Comparative analysis was performed for the exam and coursework performance of students who attended the TBL sessions (online and in-person) and those that did not.

RESULTS: Both cohorts of students who attended either in-person (n = 66) or online TBL sessions (n = 109) performed significantly better in their exams (p < 0.05) and a related coursework (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively) when compared to those that did not attend. For both these cohorts the exam mark distribution was much narrower compared to those that did not attend the TBL sessions where the majority of fails and "no shows" were recorded.

CONCLUSIONS: Online and in-person TBL, can successfully supplement traditional lecture-based teaching and enhance the learning/performance, for complex medical subjects/topics. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to deliver these sessions online with demonstrable benefit for students suggesting that there is greater flexibility in the use of TBL in higher education.

Original language	English
Article number	120
Journal	BMC Medical Education
Volume	22
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03173-5
Publication status	Published - 22 Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which
permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the
original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or
other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line
to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this
licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco
mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Keywords

Application exercise
Endocrine disorders
Higher education
iRAT
Mariann Rand-Weaver and Emmanouil Karteris should be considered joint last authors
tRAT

Access to Document

10.1186/s12909-022-03173-5

s12909-022-03173-5
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Final published version, 2.18 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

@article{4d8fa1bf46da4dd2bb7dded334238384,

title = "The effect of online and in-person team-based learning (TBL) on undergraduate endocrinology teaching during COVID-19 pandemic",

abstract = "BACKGROUND: Team-based learning (TBL) combines active and collaborative learning, while incorporating aspects of the flipped classroom approach and problem-based learning. The COVID-19 pandemic presented certain challenges in the delivery of TBL in class. In this study, we investigated the impact of TBL on the academic performance of final year Biomedical Sciences' undergraduate students in the context of an {"}Endocrine Disorders{"} study block. We did so by comparing the classical in-person approach and online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic.METHODS: A non-compulsory TBL session was introduced to the curriculum of this block, which followed the traditional 2-h lecture delivery. Comparative analysis was performed for the exam and coursework performance of students who attended the TBL sessions (online and in-person) and those that did not.RESULTS: Both cohorts of students who attended either in-person (n = 66) or online TBL sessions (n = 109) performed significantly better in their exams (p < 0.05) and a related coursework (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively) when compared to those that did not attend. For both these cohorts the exam mark distribution was much narrower compared to those that did not attend the TBL sessions where the majority of fails and {"}no shows{"} were recorded.CONCLUSIONS: Online and in-person TBL, can successfully supplement traditional lecture-based teaching and enhance the learning/performance, for complex medical subjects/topics. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to deliver these sessions online with demonstrable benefit for students suggesting that there is greater flexibility in the use of TBL in higher education.",

keywords = "Application exercise, Endocrine disorders, Higher education, iRAT, Mariann Rand-Weaver and Emmanouil Karteris should be considered joint last authors, tRAT",

author = "Shafeena Anas and Ioannis Kyrou and Mariann Rand-Weaver and Emmanouil Karteris",

note = "{\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.",

year = "2022",

month = feb,

day = "22",

doi = "10.1186/s12909-022-03173-5",

language = "English",

volume = "22",

journal = "BMC Medical Education",

issn = "1472-6920",

publisher = "BioMed Central",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - The effect of online and in-person team-based learning (TBL) on undergraduate endocrinology teaching during COVID-19 pandemic

AU - Anas, Shafeena

AU - Kyrou, Ioannis

AU - Rand-Weaver, Mariann

AU - Karteris, Emmanouil

N1 - © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

PY - 2022/2/22

Y1 - 2022/2/22

N2 - BACKGROUND: Team-based learning (TBL) combines active and collaborative learning, while incorporating aspects of the flipped classroom approach and problem-based learning. The COVID-19 pandemic presented certain challenges in the delivery of TBL in class. In this study, we investigated the impact of TBL on the academic performance of final year Biomedical Sciences' undergraduate students in the context of an "Endocrine Disorders" study block. We did so by comparing the classical in-person approach and online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic.METHODS: A non-compulsory TBL session was introduced to the curriculum of this block, which followed the traditional 2-h lecture delivery. Comparative analysis was performed for the exam and coursework performance of students who attended the TBL sessions (online and in-person) and those that did not.RESULTS: Both cohorts of students who attended either in-person (n = 66) or online TBL sessions (n = 109) performed significantly better in their exams (p < 0.05) and a related coursework (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively) when compared to those that did not attend. For both these cohorts the exam mark distribution was much narrower compared to those that did not attend the TBL sessions where the majority of fails and "no shows" were recorded.CONCLUSIONS: Online and in-person TBL, can successfully supplement traditional lecture-based teaching and enhance the learning/performance, for complex medical subjects/topics. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to deliver these sessions online with demonstrable benefit for students suggesting that there is greater flexibility in the use of TBL in higher education.

AB - BACKGROUND: Team-based learning (TBL) combines active and collaborative learning, while incorporating aspects of the flipped classroom approach and problem-based learning. The COVID-19 pandemic presented certain challenges in the delivery of TBL in class. In this study, we investigated the impact of TBL on the academic performance of final year Biomedical Sciences' undergraduate students in the context of an "Endocrine Disorders" study block. We did so by comparing the classical in-person approach and online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic.METHODS: A non-compulsory TBL session was introduced to the curriculum of this block, which followed the traditional 2-h lecture delivery. Comparative analysis was performed for the exam and coursework performance of students who attended the TBL sessions (online and in-person) and those that did not.RESULTS: Both cohorts of students who attended either in-person (n = 66) or online TBL sessions (n = 109) performed significantly better in their exams (p < 0.05) and a related coursework (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively) when compared to those that did not attend. For both these cohorts the exam mark distribution was much narrower compared to those that did not attend the TBL sessions where the majority of fails and "no shows" were recorded.CONCLUSIONS: Online and in-person TBL, can successfully supplement traditional lecture-based teaching and enhance the learning/performance, for complex medical subjects/topics. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to deliver these sessions online with demonstrable benefit for students suggesting that there is greater flexibility in the use of TBL in higher education.

KW - Application exercise

KW - Endocrine disorders

KW - Higher education

KW - iRAT

KW - Mariann Rand-Weaver and Emmanouil Karteris should be considered joint last authors

KW - tRAT

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125155932&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1186/s12909-022-03173-5

DO - 10.1186/s12909-022-03173-5

M3 - Article

C2 - 35193577

AN - SCOPUS:85125155932

SN - 1472-6920

VL - 22

JO - BMC Medical Education

JF - BMC Medical Education

IS - 1

M1 - 120

ER -

The effect of online and in-person team-based learning (TBL) on undergraduate endocrinology teaching during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this