Medical Undergraduates Preference in Learning Style: PowerPoint presentations versus chalk and talk

Learning style preferences are the manner and conditions under which learners most efficiently and effectively perceive process, store, and recall what they are attempting to learn. Lectures have been the most common form of teaching and learning since ancient times. The most common ways of lecture delivery include the lectures using PowerPoint (PPT) presentations, lectures utilizing the transparency and overhead projector (TOHP) besides the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ method. Didactic lectures are still the most commonly used methodology of teaching. The objective of the study is to compare PowerPoint presentations versus chalk and talk in material understanding, effectiveness and attitude among medical students. A cross sectional questionnaire based study was conducted on 3rd year medical students of College of Medicine and Health Science, NUST, Sohar. The study participant was divided into two groups. The first groups of students were taught on the black board (chalk and talk) and the second groups of students were taught on PPT presentation. The same biochemistry topics were taught to both groups by the same instructor and on the scheduled time and day. A questionnaire was designed to assess the opinion of students regarding black board and PPT presentation. A predesigned and pretested questionnaire containing 12 questions was given to the students at the end of the lecture. The participation in the present study was on voluntary basis. In this study, PPT teaching was the most preferred teaching aid (60.23%) compared to black board teaching method (46.38%). Majority of the students reported well prepared and organized lectures, more subject coverage, and better demonstrations of clinical conditions is seen in PPT teaching then black board teaching. PPT presentation teaching is the best preferred teaching aid, which can be supplemented by Blackboard for better understanding.