EFFECT OF COMPUTER BASED ANIMATIONS ON LEARNING OF PHYSIOLOGY

Objective: To find out the effect of computer based animations on learning of Physiology.Study Design: Randomized control trial.Place and Duration of Study: Army Medical College Rawalpindi, from Jan to Sep 2016.Material and Methods: Sixty students of first year MBBS class were selected through simple random sampling and then randomly assigned into two groups of 30 each; group I and II. A pre-test was given to both the groups to assess their basal knowledge about the systems to be taught. In 1st teaching session, experimental group was taught with and control without animations. In 2nd teaching session, control group became experimental and previously experimental group became control. After both the teaching sessions MCQ tests of C2, C3 and C4 level were given to the groups and marks obtained were compared.Results: There were 20 (33.3%) male and 40 (66.7%) female students with mean age of 18.92 ± 0.56 years. Comparison of pre-test scores confirmed that basal level of knowledge was equal between the two groups (p-value=0.19). Post-test score comparison showed that experimental group scored significantly higher marks as compared to the controls (p-value=0.001 for post-test I and 0.02 for post-test II).Conclusion: Level of understanding of student increases if they are shown computer based animations during the physiology lectures. Hence, animations have positive effect on student’s academic performance.