Jigsaw Teaching VS Small Group Teaching: A ComparativeStudy Among Phase 3 MBBS Students in the Departmentof Paediatrics

Background: the traditional large group didactic lectures have many shortcomings, so smallgroup discussions have been proposed to overcome some of these shortcomings. however,a typical small group discussion (sgd) remains a mini-interactive lecture in most cases. toimprove students’ participation and their better understanding, many newer teaching-learningmethods have been tried. jigsaw teaching method, a type of cooperative learning, is one ofthese new methods. obviously, the usefulness of jigsaw teaching must be compared with othersmall group teaching methods.objectives: the aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the jigsaw teachingtechnique with the small group teaching method.methods: a quasi-experimental study was conducted over one month in the paediatricsdepartment of dm wims medical college. after obtaining written informed consent, 30 studentswere randomly selected and allocated to the sgd and jigsaw groups (15 students in each group).four topics were taken to both the groups who were crossed over after one session (a total ofeight exposures). their post-intervention mean scores were tabulated and analyzed. the likertscale was used to assess the students’ evaluations of the jigsaw method.results: the results showed that the jigsaw method had better students’ performance, whichwas statistically significant with a p<0.05. also, the students’ evaluation showed that theyappreciated the jigsaw teaching method, but time constraints were noted as a drawback.conclusions: jigsaw teaching is an excellent small group teaching method to ensure betterstudents’ participation and understanding and can add to our repertoire of teaching-learningmethods, which competency-based medical education (cbme) warrants.