Background: The new competency-based undergraduate curriculum (CBME) was implemented in India from the academic year 2019. However, there has been no clear-cut comparison on its effect on the academic performance of the students.
Aim and Objective: This study aims to find the comparison between students of traditional and CBME curriculum in the subject of pharmacology based on their academic parameters. It also aims to establish comparison and correlation of academic performance with gender, home place area, and mode of learning used. We also aim to determine whether objective parameters like multiple choice question (MCQ) section of preliminary examination show any correlation with final university examination performance.
Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional type of study. Seventy-seven students from traditional old curriculum and 98 students from CBME new curriculum batches participated with informed consent. The data for analysis between old and new curriculum batches were done using the mark obtained in final university examination in the subject of pharmacology. Quantitative parameters, that is, total marks overall, total theory marks, total marks in practical and oral viva combined, total marks in internal assessment and MCQ marks of preliminary examination, and qualitative variables such as gender of the student, home place area, that is, rural or urban and mode of learning used (physical or physical and digital) were obtained from the participants. IBM-SPSS version 25 software was used to perform descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, and Pearson’s correlation.
Results: The results clearly demonstrate that the old curriculum batch of 2018 performed better than 2019 in overall as well as practical aspects of the subject. Pearson’s correlation between all the quantitative parameters, that is, total marks overall, total theory marks, total marks in practical and oral viva combined, total marks in internal assessment, and MCQ marks of prelims for the batch of 2019 showed positive correlation with each other.
Conclusions: This study concludes that the old curriculum batch performed better than new curriculum batch in the subject of pharmacology. MCQ examination held in offline mode helps in better correlation with final university results as compared to online mode.
Key words: New Curriculum; Academic; CBME; Pharmacology; Comparison
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