Blended Learning Effectiveness: Improving Japanese Medical Laboratory Science Students’ Identification of Parasite Eggs

Parasitic infections are declining in Japan, resulting in fewer hours of parasitology instruction in medical laboratory science and medical schools. However, there are growing concerns that the parasite identification skills of medical laboratory technologists and the diagnostic skills of physicians may be compromised as a result. Effective teaching methods are required to improve the identification of parasites in pre-graduate education. We therefore adopted a new teaching method: the blended learning method, in 2018. This method combined the e-learning and jigsaw methods, which had already been implemented separately in 2017. This study aimed to evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of this blended learning approach compared to that of 2017 in teaching parasitology practice to students enrolled in the Department of Medical Laboratory Science. The results show that the median score for the practical test was 83.3 points for the blended learning lessons, which was not significantly different from the scores for jigsaw or e-learning lessons. However, blended learning had the lowest percentage of failures on the practical test, at 10.7%. Additionally, the microscopic image test results indicate a significant memory retention effect. From the questionnaire results, 94.7% of the students were satisfied with their practice. In conclusion, the blended learning did not significantly improve parasite identification skills, but it may reduce the number of failures, suggesting a knowledge retention effect and a high level of satisfaction with this practice.