Presentation and evaluation of the teaching concept "ENHANCE" for basic sciences in medical education.

ABSTRACT

A solid understanding of basic sciences is a prerequisite for successful completion of medical education. Therefore, it is essential to improve the quality of teaching and to ensure the applicability of basic sciences. Based on practical experiences and previous research, we developed an innovative step-by-step concept, called ENHANCE, for the implementation or revision of teaching units, especially for basic sciences. We used comparative self-assessment gains, a questionnaire to assess teaching quality as well as end-of-semester evaluations (students' satisfaction and open-ended questions) to evaluate the ENHANCE concept. It was found that ENHANCE-based teaching units were related to increased students' satisfaction, high attendance rates and that restructuring the course curriculum yielded in a positive assessment of teaching effectiveness. The revised courses were rated as the very best of all classes in several semesters. Qualitative data showed that students particularly appreciated the level of comprehension and how helpful the courses were for the understanding and preparation of the regular curriculum.