Effectiveness of Buzz Session Teaching and Perception among Medical Students: An Academic Interventional Study

This interventional study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of buzz session teaching in large groups and assess undergraduate medical students' perceptions of the buzz session teaching method. The study involved 100 first-year medical students divided into two groups, i.e., "group I" as "buzz first" and "group II" as "didactic first" comprising 50 students each. The topic "Physiology of the Cerebellum" was taught to "group I" through a buzz session and to "group II" through a didactic lecture. After a week, group I received a didactic lecture on the topic "Anterolateral Pathway in the Spinal Cord," whereas "group II" was taught the same by a buzz session. The students of both groups underwent a multiple choice question exam related to the taught topic immediately and again after 15 days of the teaching session. All students were provided feedback on a five-point Likert scale for the buzz session. According to students' perceptions, buzz sessions boosted communication skills and confidence levels by 94.8% and 96.3%, respectively. Of the students, 93.7% felt that the buzz session helped them retain more information and 94.1% thought they made the classroom environment more lively. More buzz sessions were desired by 94.8% of the participants. There was no difference in the marks gained for the acquired topics using buzz sessions and didactic lectures as teaching methods (P > 0.05). The students scored more marks in the tests taken after the buzz session than after the didactic lecture at 15 days of instruction (P < 0.05). The study concluded that students enjoyed the buzz session teaching method. The buzz session increased short-term retention. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: In this current interventional study, we assessed the effectiveness of a buzz session as a novel teaching tool for large-group physiology instruction in first-year undergraduate medical students. Furthermore, we assessed student responses to see how the buzz session was perceived. Experimental evidence indicates that the buzz sessions led to greater retention after 15 days than the didactic lecture approach for physiology teaching in a preclinical context.