Abstract:

Introduction:
Increasing electromagnetic background in the living environment as well as in medical facilities is observed at present. Our pedagogical research is focused on mapping intensity of electromagnetic fields produced by modern medical equipment and their influence on the human health. Its outputs will serve as a starting point for creation an original interdisciplinary study texts on electromagnetic fields for the needs of healthcare study programs.

Material and methods:
Knowledge about electromagnetic fields of Slovak students of general medicine and dentistry after theoretical and practical teaching of medical biophysics (just before final exam) were studied.
A database of continuous and exam tests consisting of 5,000 questions/statements was used. Each randomly generated test includes 100 True/False statements. All tests were available in the e-learning LMS MOODLE platform and answered online.
The results in last acad. year 2021/2022 (combined teaching: online lectures, in-presence practical training) were compared with results in previous acad. years 2019/2020 (full in-presence teaching) and 2020/2021 (full online teaching) in our contribution. Online mode of teaching was held via MS Teams and testing via LMS MOODLE platform.
Studied sample in acad. years 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 consisted of 370, 480 and 370 students, respectively.

Results:
Percentage of correct answers in the exam test in three acad. years was studied. The weighted arithmetic averages of correct answered statements especially in the topic “electromagnetic fields” were calculated.
The best answered statements in all acad. years were topics known from secondary school (wavelength and frequency of an electromagnetic waves, definition of refractive index, light reflection and refraction), the lowest number of correct answers was on statements about light behaviour on the interface of two media, properties of the visible light, light transition of light through interface of two mediums, principle of a photocell, general principles of interaction of visible light with visual analyser, and physical principle of the endoscopes. Correct or false answers in many cases depended on the statement formulation and mentioned context.

Conclusion:
Medical biophysics prepares medical students to understand physical laws that are applied in medicine. In the current syllabus of medical biophysics at the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University in Bratislava were also included both theory and experimental tasks that deal with electromagnetic fields (detection of electromagnetic fields, physical properties of individual components of electromagnetic spectrum, light reflection and refraction, biophysical principles of human vision).
In connection with this fact we considered necessary to map student´s knowledge in this topic after finishing teaching of medical biophysics. Analysis of test answers allows us to pay higher attention to some individual topics of medical biophysics during teaching.

Acknowledgement:
Contribution was supported by GP KEGA MESRS of the SR № 023UK–4/2021.

Keywords:

Medical study, medical biophysics, electromagnetic fields, knowledge assessment.