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IJAR.2017.133

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Type of Article:  Original Research

Volume 5; Issue 1 (March 2017)

Page No.: 3659-3664

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.16965/ijar.2017.133

WHATSAPP-ASSISTED LEARNING OF ANATOMY AS AN ADJUVANT TO TRADITIONAL CLASS-ROOM LEARNING: ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROSPECT

Rajiv Ranjan *1, Amit Jain 2, Anil Singh Baghel 3.

*1 Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy, RIMS, Ranchi, India.

2 Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy, RDGMC, Ujjain, India.

3 Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, RDGMC, Ujjain, India.

Address for Correspondence: Dr Rajiv Ranjan, 20, Doctors Colony, RIMS campus, Bariatu, Ranchi- 834009, India. Mobile no – 9039129569, 8085227488 E-Mail: dr.rajiv@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

Introduction: WhatsApp is one of the most popular tool of mass media communication besides Facebook and twitter. We all agree a good communication is essential between the teacher and student for a healthy academic environment in every discipline and it is must in Anatomy because of immenseness of this basic science as well as its exposure to the students in a short span. To ease this burden and to facilitate the teaching learning outcome we incorporated WhatsApp shared learning as an adjuvant to class-room teaching. So we created a group dedicated to anatomical discussion for MBBS 2015-16 batch. We discussed the current curricular topics, relevant queries and provided the students the multimedia resource as and when needed. The outcome of this was analysed and discussed through peer reviewed questionnaire and suggestions.

Materials and Methods:  A descriptive study was designed to assess the outcome of the curricular assistance given to a batch of 150 students over WhatsApp. Their perception related to various aspect of WhatsApp assisted learning was documented using a questionnaire and analysed statistically and subjectively.

Result and Discussion: WhatsApp m-learning assistance was highly acknowledged by the participants with 74% positive response as an adept learning methodology, 89% appreciate its confusion clearing approach, 84% appreciate the availability of learning resource, 87% approve its quicker knowledge sharing, 78% found its helpfulness in complete coverage of anatomy curriculum, 79% acknowledge its time saving, 78% approves its learning capability by group discussion and 89% advocate it as an adjuvant to classroom learning in future.

Conclusion: WhatsApp based m-learning emerged as an adept adjuvant to class-room teaching in terms of ubiquitous availability and collaborative learning.

Key words: Medical Anatomy, WhatsApp, m-learning.

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Cite this article: Rajiv Ranjan, Amit Jain, Anil Singh Baghel. WHATSAPP-ASSISTED LEARNING OF ANATOMY AS AN ADJUVANT TO TRADITIONAL CLASS-ROOM LEARNING: ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROSPECT. Int J Anat Res 2017;5(1):3659-3664. DOI: 10.16965/ijar.2017.133