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Table 6 Themes and subthemes of what participants disliked about the lectures

From: Effectiveness of blended learning versus lectures alone on ECG analysis and interpretation by medical students

Theme

Subtheme

Number of mentions

Example of feedback

CT

BL

Lecture time

Too long

5

14

“Lectures were too long. They should have been broken up into 3 or 4 shorter sessions”

Too short

15

6

“I did not like the fact that we had to learn such a crucial skill in such a short amount of time”

Too few

10

5

“Sporadic”, “Too few”

End of day

2

4

“Time slots in afternoon for ECG teaching can be tiring and I tended to lose focus at times during the teaching”

Too late in clerkship

0

4

“I would have loved to have had [ECG teaching] earlier during the rotation”

Method of instruction

Content overload

5

8

“Too much information was covered in one go, therefore making it difficult to digest the information given”

Lack of opportunity to practice in class

8

1

“The information was not retained because we couldn’t practice”

Focus on summative assessment

1

0

“ECG teaching at the moment is very much for exam and test purposes”

Material not available for preparation

2

1

“Although it would have been more helpful if we had access to the notes before and after in order to read up beforehand”

Large group instruction

3

0

“There were too many of us present”

Lecturer attributes

Lecturer failed to gauge if students understood content

3

0

“Probing for understanding was not done in class”

Student attributes

Afraid of participation in front of peers

4

0

“Sometimes you are scared to ask questions because you don’t know how to phrase your confusion”

Attrition of knowledge

4

0

“At the time, they made sense, but I forgot many things”

  1. BL Blended learning; CT Conventional teaching; N/A Not applicable