Effect of Students' Learning through Group Discussions and Peer Learning in Online Lectures to Create Multiple-choice Questions

Objective: A part of the clinical clerkship at the Nippon Dental University School of Life Dentistry was shifted to online lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Therefore, we conducted online lectures about student-generated clinical multiple-choice questions (MCQs) with the expectation that they would serve as a substitute for clinical clerkship and promote active learning. A questionnaire survey was performed after the online lectures to discuss the effects of this strategy on the students' learning.Methods: A total of 124 students in the fifth grade were assigned to groups of 7 or 8 students and given the task of creating multiple-choice questions based on clinical cases. The assignment was done with active learning through group discussions and peer learning. Questionnaires were administered after all the lectures and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.Results and Conclusion: After this course, 80% of the students thought that they had learned for themselves well, and about 60% said that their self-study time had increased. About 84% of the students also indicated that the discussions among students had been helpful for their learning. The quantitative text analysis based on free-text descriptions indicated that this course promoted "acquisition of knowledge, " "advancement of knowledge, " "a richer understanding, " and "ability to think independently. " We also believe that by listening to "others' opinions, " the students were able to fill gaps in knowledge and deepen their learning. However, some students were still reluctant to engage in learning, and it is necessary to consider further learning strategies to encourage more active learning and obtain better learning outcomes.