Effectiveness of Academic Role-play in Understanding the Clinical Concepts in Medical Education

Abstract

Medical education was evolved drastically to meet the needs of current generation students. Role play is the effective method to teach the clinical concepts. Role play promotes active learning and critical thinking. It also improves the communication skills which are most essential in medical education. The current study was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of role-play in understanding the clinical concepts in medical physiology. The topic was explained in the routine lecture using power point presentation and video. Post-assessment was performed using 30 multiple choice questions. The perception of the students was also obtained after the role play. There was a significant (P<0.05) increase in the performance of students in the MCQ test followed by the role play. 75% of students agreed strongly that role-play along with class lecture helps to acquire better clinical knowledge.76% strongly agreed that the role play promotes active learning. 80% of students strongly agreed that they enjoyed the role play. 72% of students strongly agreed that role play helps them to remember the clinical concepts easily. 90% of students strongly agreed that it increased their communication skills and motivated them to work in a team. 75% of students preferred role plays for learning the clinical concepts, and 70% of the students recommended the roleplay to be implemented in the curriculum. The study results provide research evidence about the effectiveness of the role play in teaching the clinical concepts. Further detailed studies are recommended to adopt role play in teaching the clinical concepts in medical education.