Problem - based learning (PBL), is one of the most important progresses in the
quality improvement of educational methods during the late years of 20th century,
Although, that is presented as one of the learning methods, there is much
controversy about its role as an alternative for traditional methods of medical
education. This is the fist study of PBL method in pharmacology at the Babol
university of medical sciences.
57 medical studets (32 female & 25 male) were entered to the study. ,After
training of them, they were divided into three equal groups with one topic of
phamacology for each group that could be presented as PBL educational method.
Each group had one month ro get ready. for PBL session. For comparison between
two methods the same topics offered to the subjects as traditional method. After
the ending of program two examinations were given one based on PBL method and
the other on traditional training. Finally, all data were analysed by t-student and
Mann-Whitney statisitical tests and differences between each point was considered
significant at p<0.05.
Results show that females have greater score of PBL in comparison to that of
males. Totally, score of PBL method is greater than that of traditional one (12.56
vs 11.5 p=0.00).Despite differences between two sexes, it has not been found any
significant change in score of males and females in PBL method, Most of students
(50.9%) agree with PBL method, and 88% were interested in group working and
finally, 92.2% were satisfied with this method of learning.
Based on obtained results, it is concluded that students are more frequently
interested in learning by PBL method. More attention must be paid to improve
learning capabilities by replacing traditional education methods with new ones. At
present, however, modification of our traditional method of education is not
attainable in Iran.