Judging media -articles on health- related issues: a new kind of biochemistry exam for biomedical undergrad students

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, J.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Mesquita, D., Hermes-Lima, M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Ensino de Bioquímica
• Texto Completo: http://bioquimica.org.br/revista/ojs/index.php/REB/article/view/194
• topic: Basic Biochemistry exam ; Clinical Biochemistry; True-or-False exam.

Health-relatedpopular articlesissues  and medical tips (or “Dr Google”) have taken over the  i nternet.  Misconception sare very common ly found among these sources, butrecognizing them may require  good biomedical knowledge.   The ability to judge knowledge is, according to Bloom’s scale,a very advanced step in the learning process. In this sense, we decided to use  fragments of articles from the  i nternet as part of a formal exam to evaluate students' overall learning of Clinical and Applied Biochemistry (CAB) . This tes t, known as the True -or-False (T -or-F) exam, is made up of statements found online that are judged by  freshman  medical and nutrition  students taking Basic Biochemistry (BioBio). In the last  4 semesters, students' acceptance and responses to  BioBio´s T -or -F  exam were evaluated through questionnaires(using a 5-point Likert scale) . Results from 258 students indicate dthat 69% of them felt the exa m was difficult,  87% thought the exam was of good quality, and 69% believed that using media-questions is relevant  for learning CAB. However, only 64% thought the exam evaluated satisfactorily what  they  learned in class. Also, the average grade obtained was 5. 85(out of 10) . This is probably because students are not familiarized with this examination,  which  requires more than only memorization of biochemical  pathways and reactions   –  it evaluates the  application of knowledge.  Thus, BioBio´s  T-or-F  exam is an innovative way of evaluating knowledge and of enabling students to be critic about information receive d. The major ity of students acknowledged the  exam´s relevance  f or learning purposes and, so, it could be well-applied to other fields of science.