A cross-sectional study was conducted at Debretabor and Mekelle Universities from February 1 to 30, 2021. Debretabor University is found in Debretabor town, Amhara regional state and have been using PBL as a formal educational method since 2014 for its health science students where as Mekelle University is found in Mekelle city, the capital of Tigray regional state, Ethiopia and is using LBL method. Both universities had a health science faculty with 3,301 regular undergraduate students enrolled and six departments each were used for the study. Those departments were Medicine, Pharmacy, Midwifery, Nurse, Clinical laboratory and Anesthesia. The total number of second and third year student’s for the academic year in both Universities were 1,053.
Study population; All second and third year regular undergraduate health Science College students found in Debretabor and Mekelle Universities during period of data collection. Inclusion criteria; All second and third year regular undergraduate health Science College students found in Debretabor and Mekelle Universities.
Exclusion criteria; Students who transferred to DTU in the academic year from other universities those are not yet use PBL as one teaching method and who transferred to MU from other Universities that were using PBL as one instructional method were excluded. There were no transferred students in both Universities so all second and third year students (1,053) were included in the study.
Variables of the study; Academic satisfaction (five-point Likert scale merged as Satisfied or Unsatisfied) is the dependent variable. Independent variables Socio-demographic characteristics: (Age, sex, religion, ethnic group, department, year of study & family’s educational level). Personal related factors: (Preferred learning style, Experience of classroom distress, GPA, Learning approach, Time investment, Energy and effort). Institutional factors: (Curriculum, teaching method, Quality of instructors, Quality of feedback, Student assessment, Staff helpfulness, Student centeredness).
Data collection procedure; data were collected by self-administered structured and pretested questionnaire. The questionnaire is adapted from previous similar studies done at the College of Medicine, King Saud University, at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and others (1, 19, 29-40). Four BSc instructors for each study area was assigned to collect the data and one MSc for each study area was assigned for supervision a total of ten persons for both Universities. The questionnaire was developed in English and translated to Amharic version. Then back to English by language experts for the sake of consistency. Training was provided for data collectors and supervisors for one day about the purpose of the study and techniques of data collection. The trained data collectors were supervised during data collection, and each questionnaire was check for completeness daily. The data entry was done by two individuals at two different computers to minimize error and the similarity of data entered was checked. The questionnaire was pre-tested to check the response, language clarity and appropriateness of the questionnaire while the pretest was done at Adigrat University with 5% of sample size. At the end of the pretest, vague words of the tool were identified and correction measure was taken.
After the data has checked for completeness and accuracy, it was coded manually and then entered into Epi Info version 6.04 and exported to SPSS version 23 for analysis. Descriptive statistics were performed on numerical value, mean, frequencies to describe the study population about dependent and independent variables. The binary logistic regression model was fitted to determine the crude associations of each independent variable with academic satisfaction. Those variables with a p-value of less than 0.05 were entered for multivariable logistic regression for further analysis to control for confounding variables. Adjusted OR with 95% CI was used to estimate the strength of the association between independent variables associated with the outcome variable. Finally, variables with p-value <0.05 were considered significantly associated with academic satisfaction. The Hosmer and Lemeshow goodness of fit test was used to check model fitness and indicates that the data is fit for the model (p = 0.63).
Ethics approval and consent to participants:
Ethical clearance was obtained from Mekelle University College of health sciences, institutional board review (IBR) and a letter of cooperation was also received from the head department of midwifery, college of health sciences, Mekelle University to each Universities. The objective and the aim of the research was explained to the study subjects on the information sheet of the questionnaire, verbal and written informed consent was obtained from each study subject after explanation of the purpose of the study and involvement (to be a participant) was after their complete consent. Any health science students who were not willing to participate in the study were not forced to participate, no personal identifications were included in the data sheet and all data taken from the participants were kept strictly confidential and used only for the study purpose.