Evaluación de una estrategia docente para las prácticas de laboratorio de Microbiología y Parasitología Médica en Medicina

objective: to evaluate the efficacy of a didactic strategy designed for lab practices in microbiology and medical parasitology at the latin american medical school. methods: the didactic strategy was based on problem-based teaching and the principle of cooperative learning. the evaluation covered 5 academic courses (september 2004 to july 2009) in which the population of students registered in these courses was involved. the final academic results of the practical lab classes as well as the retention of acquired practical knowledge by the students reflected in the final test were analyzed; then they were compared with the historical data from the 2002-2003 academic year, using the contingency tables and the pearson′s c2. the marks and the quality of the final exam were evaluated with spearman′s rank correlations (r). the significant differences were considered for p< 0,05. results: the strategy consisted of 3 basic actions: a) the approach of the problem or experimental task; b) carrying out the experiment; c) control and evaluation of the process. during the evaluative period, the marks and the quality of the practical lab classes were stable and significantly higher than those of the 2002-2003 course. at the same time, there was lower frequency of mistakes in the final test of the subject in terms of contents related to practical objectives (p< 0,001). conclusions: the educational strategy encouraged the teamwork, and favoured the academic performance and the retention of knowledge about the practical essentials of the subject.