The Effectiveness of Broad-Band Distance Education System in Medical General Education

Abstract

Broad-band distance education system integrates new computer and ATM ( Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network technology to establish real-time high quality two-way videoconference system. Through the system the learning places could be extended, and the education could be personalized. The NII ( National Information Infrastructure) broad-band distance education system began its pilot project from July 1995. As a collaborated institution, the College of Medicine, National Taiwan University (NTUCM) announced the medical general education course 'health promotion' as a distance education course for the trial. The course was opened as an elected course to whole campus and other two universities. Investigations for effectiveness and comparison between this new and traditional lecture were done by questionnaire. There were 175 students attending the class, and 77% of them was from College of Law. The result of questionnaire showed the overall satisfaction was about 60% for the course and distance education system. The satisfaction of audio (75%) was better than video ( 50%) and computer presentation (40%). The satisfaction of course content presentation was 70%. In other items of course content, teacher and course management, the satisfactions were around 40%. The poorest satisfaction was found on the interaction in class for student at the level of 10%. In another questionnaire comparing two education systems, distance education course is better than traditional lecture in many ways including course content, teacher and classroom arrangement except student interaction in a class. The increase of student number and classrooms made it difficult for interaction among students and teacher in a distance education class. Asynchronous distance education system including mailing list, bulletin board system, and World Wide Web as supplements to the course could be the solution. In the future NTUCM will integrate Internet, narrow-band ISDN, broad-band DS1, DS3 and ATM network, and collaborate with telemedicine project of NTUH and affiliated teaching hospital to develop medical distance education program combing clinical teaching and consultation training. We expect to establish a national medical network for medical education.