Abstract:

A new progressive and effective E-learning method available for pre-graduate and post-graduate education was developed at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Jessenius Faculty of Medicine Comenius University (JFM CU) in Martin. A pilot E-learning project "Microbiology not only for medical students" was launched at the beginning of 2012 and lasted until the end of 2013. The project is aimed to enable students of various branches of health care such as: general medicine, public health, nursing, midwifery, dentistry but also professionals and the general public to access freely all the information and study material from general and special microbiology, especially on-line learning modules and on-line access to the sources of information. The output of the project is available on-line on educational portal Medical Faculties Educational NETwork (MEFANET) that was developed in cooperation between Medical Faculties in Slovakia and Czech Republic.

The primary goal of the study research was to figure out the impact of E-learning project "Microbiology not only for medical students" on the learning capabilities and knowledge of the students of general medicine studying at JFM CU in Martin from the subject of Microbiology.
The evaluation was based on comparison of the final grades (A, B, D, E, F and Fx) of medical students from the subject of Microbiology before (in 2011), during (in 2012 and 2013) and after (in 2014) an implementation of the independent interactive multimedia learning process.

To summarize the above mentioned, we came to a conclusion that in the course of the E-learning project as well as after the termination of the project with the established E-learning method the knowledge of the student from Microbiology got significantly improved, which was reflected in their evaluation scores. Particularly, we observed a considerable increase of the grade "A" (in 2012 – 44.77 % students, in 2013 – 45.83 % students and in 2014 – 73.13 % students) and a decrease of the grade "B" (in 2012 – 17.14 % students, in 2013 – 25.69 % students and in 2014 – 15.00 % students) and the grade "C" (in 2012 – 16.19 % students, in 2013 – 13.89 % students and in 2014 – 3.13 % students), if compared with year 2011 before starting both the of E-learning project and the implementation of E-learning method (in 2011: A – 25.37 % students, B – 47.76 % students and C – 21.64 % students). The differences in grades D, E and Fx were minimal and non-significant for evaluation.

Finally, we can conclude that our E-learning project with E-learning method have contributed to the significant improvement of student´s knowledge as well as assessment from the subject of Microbiology at JFM CU in Martin.

Acknowledgement:
Supported by the project KEGA 067UK-4/2012 and KEGA 032UK-4/2015 Ministry of Education, Slovak Republic

Keywords:

e-learning, interactive process, microbiology.