Abstract:

Practical training in Histology requires additional training that promotes meaningful learning of relevant structures and pathognomonic of tissue structure. Based on this statement, two studies have been carried out and are comprised in this work. The first study investigates the prioritization of different learning paths and learning resources available by the student in order to achieve this objective. Based on these results, a second study evaluates the priorities of the students to configure the communication and transmission model of the contents of the preferred paths.

The first study involves the statistical analysis of the questionnaire’s responses provided by one hundred forty-five freshmen medical students in the University of Granada, the result obtained was that students give priority to routes of self-directed learning related to their previous experience -the department's Web and lab notebook- and authority documental sources -books and atlas- on learning paths. These preferences appeared as opposite to the interaction with their professors, suggesting a review of the role of the academic staff in the context of the activity performed and the mentoring model in the Spanish university education system.

The main findings of this study point the usefulness of the audiovisual notebook as a teaching resource. It appears as an instrument that conjoined helpful features of previous experience of the student and documentary authority for self-directed learning in the participatory context required by the European credit under the convergence program.

The second study was carried out with a sample of one hundred and fifteen medical students from to the group in the previous study. Another questionnaire was handed asking about the type of communication in an audiovisual notebook about the execution of a histological technique. This audiovisual notebook comprises all the four preferred routes of learning previously mentioned.

The results obtained from the statistical analysis were that students give priority to the content transmission by verbal communication or text, on any additive adjacent to the core of the message. They also showed a preference for experiential transmission, voice and ambient sound on the textual transmission or the one performed with replacement musical sound.

Thus, the implications of these studies for the histology department are based on the current use of the routes of learning and teaching resources prioritized by the students along with their preferred media characteristics in order to achieve an efficient academic communication and transmission of knowledge.

Keywords:

self-directed learning, practical training, audiovisual notebook, Histology.