Teaching methods

Advantages

Disadvantages

Lectures

• Efficient, cheap way of conveying a topic to a large audience

• One-way speaker communication with no active learner participation
• Difficult to maintain learners’ interest
• Does not appear to be effective in changing a physician’s performance

Tutorials

• Promotes adult learning
• Encourages learners to solve problems, connect, prioritise, and incorporate conceptual knowledge
• Affects the development of attitudes and values
• Promotes social and intellectual experience 
• Develops oral presentation skills

• Labour intensive

PBL

• Promotes independent, active learning
• Encourages problem-solving skills
• Information can be better retained
• Higher learner satisfaction
• Can effect changes in professional practice
• Develops interpersonal skills and teamwork

• Resource intensive
• Small numbers of learners
• Facilitator needs to understand group dynamics
• Dependent on facilitator’s skills

Clinical teaching

• Promotes clinical examination, diagnostic and management skills

• Labour intensive

Observation of teacher by learner

• Allows observation of experienced clinicians’ consultations and practices

• Boring, as it is less interactive

Observation of learner by teacher

• Highly contextualised
• Easily remembered
• Good for formative assessment

• Lacks self-assessment
• Labour intensive
• Time-consuming

Audiotaping

• Improves verbal communication skills
• Useful tool to analyse the consultation process
• Cheap and reviews can be done at a convenient time

• Patient refusal
• Sanitisation of views expressed by the patient for fear of reprisal arising from disclosure in the consultation

 Videotaping

• Both non-verbal and verbal communication skills are observed
• Allows clinical skills to be observed
• Allows self-observation by learners in addition to reviews by others
• Powerful tool to analyse consultation process

• The camera is threatening
• Patient refusal
• May interrupt the normal flow of consultation
• Patient’s unwillingness to commit personal information
• May provoke the learner’s emotions
• The learner may feeling embarrassed or threatened by self-confrontation especially if he or she lacks confidence

Chart/ case reviews

• Interactive sessions
• Promotes problem-solving, diagnostic, interpretive and management skills
• Flexible; can be conducted at any time

• Time-consuming

Role play

• Contextualised
• Enhances communication and consultation skills
• Useful for the teaching of difficult consultations in a controlled environment

• Time-consuming
• May provoke the learner’s emotions

Audits

• Improves patient care
• Improves clinical effectiveness

• Repetitive and dull
• Poor compliance
• Time-consuming
• Intrusion into clinical work

Portfolio-building

• Student-centred
• Fosters self-assessment skills
• Encourages greater learner’s responsibility
• Encourages the learner’s reflection of own knowledge, attitudes and beliefs

• Work-intensive

Internet-based teaching

• Accessible, convenient
• Content can be updated regularly

• Needs computing skills

Journal paper appraisal

• Promotes critical appraisal skills

• Needs teachers with research skills to facilitate discussions

Use of clinical skills laboratories

• Allows for repeated practice and reinforcement of techniques before exposure to patients

• Synthetic apparatus lacks realism