Active learning in a Year 2 pathology curriculum

Purpose Team‐based learning (TBL) has been successfully used in non‐medical curricula, but its effectiveness in medical education has not been studied extensively. We evaluated the impact of TBL on the academic performance of Year 2 medical students at Wright State University by comparing this active learning strategy against a traditional method of case‐based group discussion (CBGD). Methods A prospective crossover design assigned 83 Year 2 medical students to either CBGD or TBL for 8 pathology modules in the systems‐based curriculum. The effectiveness of both learning methods was assessed by performance on pathology‐based examination questions contained in end‐of‐course examinations. The highest and lowest academic quartiles of students were evaluated separately. Students' opinions of both methods were surveyed. Results No significant differences in whole group performance on pathology‐based examination questions were observed as a consequence of experiencing TBL versus CBGD. However, students in the lowest academic quartile showed better examination performance after experiencing TBL than CBGD in 4 of 8 modules (P = 0.035). Students perceived that the contributions of peers to learning were more helpful during TBL than CBGD (P = 0.003). Conclusion This study demonstrates that TBL and CBGD are equally effective active learning strategies when employed in a systems‐based pre‐clinical pathology curriculum, but students with lower academic performance may benefit more from TBL than CBGD.