Kalkara, December 28, 2020. This fall EDU digital medical school students scored above average in the International Progress Test of the European Board of Medical Assessors (EBMA IPT) in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Students from European and international universities regularly take part in the EBMA IPT. They answer 200 questions from 13 fields of human medicine, which cover the range of knowledge of the complete medical studies. In this way, the development status of the students’ knowledge is assessed and their learning progress is compared both over the course of their studies and with other students and universities.
This October, EDU students took the EBMA IPT for the first time. First-year EDU students in particular performed above average – and they did so in all 13 subject areas tested. Second-year EDU students performed on average as well as other participants from the same academic year. In 7 of the 13 subject areas, they performed better than the comparison group.
Juergen Laartz, Rector of EDU, comments: “We are thrilled with this result! It confirms the quality of the work our students, our professors, and academic teachers are doing and confirms the value of our didactic methods.” Klaus van Ackern, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health, adds: “I am proud that we have succeeded in further developing our innovative learning concept, which is impressively demonstrated by the above-average performance of our students in the first year of study . “
The very good performance of EDU students not only confirms their commitment and competence, but also the high quality of EDU’s unique learning concept: The combination of fully digital teaching with new didactic methods for theory on the one hand with very early practical training in teaching hospitals on the other.
At EDU, fully digital teaching is highly interactive: Teamwork on a digital campus, problem-based learning, group assignments, 3D and interactive digital content, simulations, group and individual support by tutors and mentors. These methods lead to a level of interaction and independent learning that combines the benefits of location-independent learning, digital communication, and materials with the social effects of group work. Smarter planning of the studies in 4-month modules is added.
At the same time, clinical learning begins very early at EDU and is closely integrated into the curriculum. From the very first module, it allows students to gain practical experience in a teaching hospital. Practical experience and clinical learning continue to take one-third of the study time in all of the following study modules.
In this way, the study of medicine becomes equally vibrant, modern, and high-quality. It integrates the centuries-old experiences in medical teaching with modern insights into didactics and digital methods.
Last but not least, the EBMA IPT results also confirm the resilience of the EDU learning model in times of COVID-19 and in light of the associated disruptions in face-to-face teaching. In addition, it thereby underlines the superiority of the EDU approach over digital frontal formats, which only digitize the standard lecture and assignment distribution, but do not map the interaction between students and independent work.
EDU is a European Institution of Higher Education. EDU is operated by Digital Education Holdings Limited (DEH) based in Kalkara, Malta. As the first educational institution of its kind in Europe, EDU offers an interactive, digital study of human medicine. From the first trimester, students at EDU learn the scientific and practical foundations of human medicine in a digital campus and in practice at teaching hospitals.
EDU supports the Digital Education Action Plan of the European Commission and the United Nations in realizing the third and fourth goal for sustainable development (“Good Health and Well- Being”, “Education for All”).
