Implementation of Team-Based Learning (TBL) in a Second Year Medical School Course: Does Prior Experience with TBL Improve the Impact of this Pedagogy?

Abstract

Abstract Background: We have shown that use of Team-based learning (TBL) in a first-year Infectious Diseases (ID) course improved final examination and course performance. Therefore, we implemented TBL in the second-year Women’s Health (WH) course to improve acquisition of course content. We hypothesized that prior experience with TBL in the first-year of medical school would lead to a strong correlation between TBL performance in the first and second years. Methods: The ID course has weekly TBL exercises that cover all course material, while the WH course has one TBL that covers a small portion of the course material. Final examination and TBL individual readiness assurance test (iRAT) scores in the ID and WH courses from three classes (n=226) were obtained with institutional review board approval. Statistical analyses were performed including comparisons of means and correlation studies. Results: Average WH iRAT scores were significantly higher than ID iRAT scores (9.19 vs. 7.40,p<0.01), and iRAT scores in both courses were highly correlated (r=0.35,p<0.01). When stratifying students based on WH course performance, in struggling students, iRAT but not final examination scores were higher in the WH course than the ID course (8.73 vs. 7.00,p<0.01 and 82.45 vs. 80.51,p>0.05, respectively). Conclusions: Our results suggest that prior experience with TBL improves TBL iRAT scores, especially in struggling students. Prior TBL experience is also associated with consistent iRAT performance between first- and second-year courses in high performing students.