Comparison of Didactic Lectures and Activity-Based Learning for Teaching First-Professional MBBS Students in the Subject of Anatomy.

Background In the field of medical education, traditional methods of teaching and learning have been used for a long time. Various new methods of learning, like activity-based learning (ABL), case-based discussion (CBD), and problem-based learning (PBL), are laying the foundation for this modern era of teaching. This study was a comparative study conducted to determine the effectiveness of activity-based learning and traditional lectures by teaching two topics to MBBS first-year professional students. Aims The study compares the effectiveness of didactic lectures and activity-based learning for MBBS first-year professional students in the subject of anatomy.  Methodology The study was conducted in the Department of Anatomy Hind Institute of Medical Sciences, Barabanki, and included 100 MBBS (2022-2023) first-year students randomly assigned to Group A (n=50, 16 females and 34 males) and Group B (n=50, 23 females and 27 males) through chit methods. The participants were exposed to two different topics of anatomy in the form of activity-based learning as well as didactic lectures. Assessments were done immediately after the exposure in the form of a post-test, and results were analyzed for both groups. Result The results of the study showed that both activity-based learning and didactic lectures were effective in teaching the two topics, but the didactic lecture group had higher retention rates than the activity-based learning group. The mean score of post-tests of students who attended a didactic lecture on the brachial plexus (6.166± 2.11) was slightly higher than that obtained by students who attended activity-based learning (5.625 ± 2.12), but the p-value obtained was not significant (0.249). Whereas the mean of the scores of the post-test obtained by students who attended a didactic lecture on mammary gland was (8.45± 1.20), slightly lower than the mean of the scores of the post-test of students who attended activity-based learning on mammary gland (8.60± 1.16), but the p-value obtained was not significant (0.520). Conclusion This study provides evidence that didactic lectures play an important role in teaching anatomy to MBBS first-year students and cannot be replaced by activity-based learning alone. Lectures followed by activity-based learning can prove to be a newer and more effective teaching-learning method with better outcomes in the form of retention and conceptual understanding of the topics in anatomy.