Use of Videos as a Medium of Clinical Teaching in Undergraduate Physiotherapy Students in India - A Randomized Single Blinded Controlled Pilot Study

Background and purpose: With bedside teaching becoming increasingly difficult with the burgeoning numbers of physiotherapy colleges in India, alternate methods of effective teaching are needed. Video based teaching is one such alternative. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of video based teaching over conventional bedside teaching in undergraduate students. Subjects: 200 subjects were divided into two groups of 100 each by simple randomization. Methods: One group was taught using previously prepared and validated videos of deformities and gait deviations in cerebral palsy and functional training of spinal cord injured patients. The other group was taught the same topics in the conventional manner using patients with similar characteristics. The outcome measures were validated pre, post and follow up tests. Analysis was done using repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Results showed that although both groups improved in the post test, and maintained learning at the follow up, the group that was taught using the videos did significantly better (p<0.001). Conclusion: The results imply that videos may have value as an alternate medium of clinical teaching in the sampled topics.