Perceptions of the undergraduate medical students about roleplay, a teaching/learning and training tool: A descriptive cross-sectional study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Roleplay is not commonly used as a tool for teaching/learning and training in the majority of medical schools in Pakistan. Bilawal Medical College, the newly established constituent college of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan, organized roleplay sessions for second-year undergraduate medical students and took feedback from them. The objective of this study was to assess the perceptions of students about roleplay as a teaching-learning/learning and training tool. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on June 2022 with a purposive sampling technique. The questionnaire comprised 10 closed-ended questions on a Likert scale of 1–5 (5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=to-some-extent agree, 2=disagree, and 1=strongly disagree) besides age and comments as open-ended questions. The validity was checked with pilot testing. The data were entered in Microsoft Excel and analysis was done in SPSS version 23. The frequency with the percentage of each item and median with interquartile range were calculated. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach α. RESULTS: The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by Cronbach’s α, which was 0.75 falls within the acceptable level. The mean age of students was 20.057 ± 1.027 years. The perceptions of students are notable; the median value on nine statements (items) is 4 and one is 5, whereas the interquartile range of eight statements is 4–5 and 2 statements 3–5. CONCLUSION: The perceptions of medical students were positive regarding the role of roleplay in teaching/learning and training learners. A remarkable percentage of students strongly agreed to agree on all 10 items related to the cognitive, skills, and attitude domain of learning.