Impact of innovative pedagogical teaching methods on students' academic performance

Background: Microteaching techniques uses various interactive and multimodal strategies to create a more engaging classroom setting compared to the traditional didactic lecturing methods. The primary objective of this study was to assess the impact of innovative pedagogical teaching methods on students' academic performance. Subjects and Methods: It was a cross-sectional interventional study conducted among seventy students of basic and post basic B.Sc. Nursing course. Seventy students were evaluated for effectiveness of two different teaching techniques on students' performance over a series of five lectures; each lecture being divided into two sessions. The first session involved delivering the lecture with the aid of power point presentation only. The second session consisted of delivering the lecture using various interactive teaching techniques. At the end of five lectures, feedback was taken from students regarding the quality of lectures. Results: The quantitative analysis showed that the mean posttest scores obtained from the students were significantly higher than the pretest scores in all the five sessions. The qualitative assessment of the study based on feedback received from the students' also pointed toward better attainment of knowledge and greater satisfaction levels. Conclusion: It is mandatory to inculcate interactive learning into regular classroom teaching to have better understanding.