• Ali Al Khader, Hadeel Odeh, Muna A Salameh, Ezidin G Kaddumi, Mohamad Al-Saghbini, Fatima N Obeidat, Nisreen Abu Shahin, and Nidal A Younes.
• Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, Jordan.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Aug 27; 100 (34): e27054e27054.

BackgroundTeaching histology as an image-intensive discipline is a major challenge to medical teachers. We compared knowledge retention and student preference after performing comparison-based and traditional methods of teaching practical histology.MethodsWe performed a crossover randomized controlled trial. Eighty nine first-year and 37 second-year medical students were randomly assigned to comparison-based or traditional classes in which PowerPoint slides were used. Each teaching approach was then switched to another group for a second tissue set. Quantitative assessment was performed using multiple-choice questions and a questionnaire.ResultsThe first-year students' overall examination scores were significantly higher in the comparison-based approach compared to the traditional approach for both tissue sets, with a large effect size. Interestingly, even for the second-year students, a significantly higher overall score for one set of tissue samples was observed in the comparison-based approach compared to the traditional approach. The students' responses to all the elements in the questionnaire were significantly in favor of the comparison-based approach.ConclusionOur findings indicate that the simple implementation of a few histopathology examples can yield a tremendous improvement in first-year medical students' understanding, enjoyment, and engagement in practical histology classes.Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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