Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Computer Assisted Learning to Improve the Clinical Examination Skills of First Year Medical Undergraduates

Background: In present scenario, in most of medical colleges, basic clinical examination is being taught in physiology labs where patients are not available.Due to this, students find difficulty in learning, developing interest and understanding applied part.To overcome this we may develop some perceptions about clinical things with help of computers.Material and methods: In this study, 75 1 st year MBBS students participated for learning through computer assistance in addition to traditional teaching of clinical examination of precordium at separate occasions.They were evaluated for the knowledge through test pre and post CAL examination.They have given their feedback about CAL also.Results: After CAL, more students passed the same test.90.7%students found CAL as more informative and 93.3% students said that they perceived better by CAL.Conclusion: It was found that CAL has advantage over traditional learning and students achieved the learning objective better, which should be supplemented even in labs in clinical teaching.