Use of concept map as a reinforcement tool in undergraduate curriculum: an analytical study

Introduction: Ever-expanding medical literature demands successful amalgamation of huge information and clinical practice for budding doctors. This study aimed to find the effectiveness of the concept map, a novel method of teaching to improve performance among undergraduate pharmacology students. Methods: The undergraduate medical students pursuing pharmacology in 2017-18 in our institute was divided into two groups after stratified randomization based on the last semester grades. After a session of didactic lecture on ‘Drugs affecting Calcium Metabolism’ and a pre-test, one group was taught using traditional tutorial methods and another group using the concept map method. Finally, a post-test was taken and feedback received from the intervention group. Results: A significant improvement of student performance was found in both groups using validated questionnaire from pre-test to post-test. There was no significant difference in the percentage of improvement between the groups. This finding was consistent in both Low scorers and High scorers of the previous semester examination. Students found the new method better in terms of understanding the concept and interactivity. Conclusion: Concept mapping encourages the students to actively participate and get a comprehensive and accurate overview of the topic, but the improvement in performance in the test was not evident.