Description of a session to assess the effectiveness of apps in medical education

Abstract

[EN]Nowadays, there are few researches about the effectiveness of apps in education. With this paper, we want to describe the methodology and the initial results obtained with the first session performed with undergraduate students of Medical Schools in University of Salamanca. The session lasted roughly two hours and was formed by ten students. We used a descriptive correlational method and the instruments utilized to obtain the qualitative data were a questionnaire and the images recorded and observed during the session. Besides it was necessary to divide the participants in two groups in order to contrast the results between them: control group and experimental group. One of them had to attend a normal class and the other one was going to use an app, which describes the anatomical parts of a brain. The results were measured with a knowledge test performed before and after the session. Both groups obtained better results after the experiment, however with the participants of the experimental group, the results were higher than the students of the control group. It is very complex to measure the effectiveness of mobile apps in education, and although the study suggests that the mobile apps could be a tool to use in higher education, it is necessary to repeat the sessions with different students in order to have more samples, which allow showing and verifying the effectiveness of apps in education.