gms | German Medical Science

Objective: In daily routine student teaching is sometimes felt as time consuming or ungrateful. Otherwise neurosurgical knowledge is also important for non-neurosurgeons and education is part of the university responsibilities. Nowadays quality of education results in a financial benefit in many medical faculties. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of a standardized evaluation tool (EVALuna^©) on neurosurgical teaching practice during the last four years.

Methods: From 2007 to 2011 evaluation data of all neurosurgical lectures and courses (13 lectures/term and 4h practical course/week) were retrieved from the EVALuna^© database. Voting takes place in an anonymous fashion via an online tool (EVALuna^©) at the end of each term. Students have to vote every lecture and practical course on a scale from 0 to 100, 0 being the best and 100 being the worst result. Additionally, a free text field is provided for commenting. Mean values for all lectures and practical courses of the same term (4^th year of medical education) were given for comparison.

Results: During the whole observation period (2007–2011) mean values of neurosurgical lectures (17.0) and practical courses (21.4) were significantly better than faculty mean: lectures (32.8) and courses (27.6) (p < 0.001). Changes during neurosurgical education (decreasing number of tutors or implementation of additional exercises e.g. drilling, microsurgical techniques, OR attendance) are directly correlated with a gain / decline of voting points.

Conclusions: The standardized and anonymized tool of student evaluation seems to be helpful in performing and adjusting teaching settings. Furthermore students and tutors benefit from EVALuna^© as it results in better teaching conditions and subsequently in financial advantages.