الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Introduction: The practice of medicine needs the highest possible skills in diagnosis and treatment. The best physicians think critically through appropriate gathering and accurate interpretation of information. Human beings are not natural critical thinkers; However, these skills can be developed over a relatively short period with many teaching strategies. Concept mapping (CM) is a very useful teaching strategy in the development of active learning, utilizing applications and analysis-based critical thinking skills. Aim: This study aims to assess the effect of the concept mapping strategy on the critical thinking skills of family medicine residents.Also, to detect differences between the traditional teaching strategy and the concept mapping strategy in improving the critical thinking skills. Methods: This is a randomized controlled clinical trial conducted on 100 family medicine residents aged between 26-28 years to compare the effect of the traditional teaching strategy and the concept mapping strategy in improving the critical thinking skills. All study participants were submitted to 5 teaching sessions for 3 months. Results: This study showed that critical thinking level was improved significantly in both groups after intervention (p-value: 0.001 for both groups). This improvement was slightly more in the concept mapping group (in the traditional teaching group, the mean and SD of critical thinking level were 14.52±1.66 and 15.94±1.9 at pre- and postinterventional levels respectively, while in the concept mapping group, they were 14.7±2.19 and 18.36±2.68 at pre- and post-interventional levels respectively). This study also showed that there was no statistically significant difference between both groups regarding the achievement grades (p-value: 0.288). However, the percentage of those who gained excellent grades was 46% in the concept mapping group versus only 34%in the traditional teaching group. Conclusions: The concept mapping strategy was more effective than the traditional teaching strategy in terms of improvement in the critical thinking. Also, this study demonstrated that both teaching strategies had the same effect on the participant`s achievement test scores. |