Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Using comics for pre-class preparation

2015; Wiley; Volume: 49; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/medu.12868

1365-2923

Aditya Joshi, Jolene Hillwig-Garcia, Monika Joshi, Paul Haidet,

Digital Storytelling and Education

The flipped classroom model requires completion of pre-reading assignments in preparation for in-class activities. However, students often come to class without reading for a variety of reasons, including paucity of time available for preparation and large amounts of material to be learned.1 We hypothesised that pre-reading material presented in the form of a comic would be less intimidating and preferred over voluminous book chapters or lengthy research articles. We prepared a 5-page comic, titled ‘The Amazing Adventures of Dopamine Dan and Glutamate Gwen’, as the assignment for preclinical students preparing for a session about schizophrenia in our neural and behavioral sciences course. The comic presented concepts about schizophrenia and its treatment. We used routinely collected course evaluation data, plus several additional questions about the use of the comic as an educational tool. Our school selects a random sample of the class population to anonymously evaluate each week of the curriculum; for this session, 21 students (14% of the entire class) were selected to complete evaluations. Nineteen students (90%) completed the evaluation. Of the responders, 89% (n = 17) agreed or strongly agreed that the comic created an effective foundation for participating in in-class activities, and 95% (n = 18) felt that the comic favourably influenced their understanding of the nature of schizophrenia and related therapeutics. In addition, 95% (n = 18) indicated a high likelihood that they would use future pre-reading material presented in this manner, and 48% (n = 9) indicated a high likelihood that they would refer to this resource after the course had ended. Analysis of qualitative comments made by students revealed that, compared with traditional pre-reading assignments, the comic was perceived as (i) an engaging way to study because it was fun and interesting, (ii) more accessible and realistic because it presented aspects of the lived experience of managing schizophrenia, and (iii) more holistic because it presented the use of therapeutics in several contexts, characterised by the disease itself, drug-induced side-effects and the patient's illness narrative. Several students identified themselves as ‘visual learners’ and found the comic's images useful as a memory tool. In conclusion, this feasibility pilot showed that the overwhelming majority of students responded positively to using comics to prepare for classroom sessions. The use of this medium might enable students to come better prepared, allowing for more advanced concepts to be introduced during classroom activities. We are planning more rigorous studies of the effects of using comics as a learning tool in medical education.