The Physiological Court

Research has been important to prove that student achievement can improve when active methodologies are properly implemented, either in isolation or integrated with lectures. Here, active methodology was organized according to a student-centered collaborative design that involved group debate, described as a Physiological Court. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the performance and perception of medical students after integrating short lectures with collaborative work and debate. The activity was carried out with students ( n = 50) from the 2nd year of medical school. The activity performed was related to the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axes. The students were instructed to prepare a study material on the proposed themes to be used on the day of the debate. At the activity day, the 2 students’ groups ( n = 25) were organized in the classroom so that they were face-to-face. Five days after, the students answered the cognitive monitoring test (CMT) which consists of 5 multiple choice questions (MCQ). Students also answered a question about their perception of the activities performed. Ninety-two percent of students showed a positive perception of the activities performed. After completion of the physiological court, 83 ± 4% of students achieved grades above 7.0 on CMT. The percentage of incorrect answers was 5 ± 1.3% in CMT. The association of 40-min lectures with active methodologies was positive for the perception and the performance of students in the second years of medical school related to the physiology of the endocrine systems.