ENHANCEMENT OF LEARNING ON SAMPLE SIZE CALCULATION WITH A SMARTPHONE APPLICATION: A CLUSTER-RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL.
Chetta NgamjarusVirasakdi ChongsuvivatwongEdward McNeilHeinz HollingPublished in: The Southeast Asian journal of tropical medicine and public health (2018)
Sample size determination usually is taught based on theory and is difficult
to understand. Using a smartphone application to teach sample size calculation
ought to be more attractive to students than using lectures only. This study
compared levels of understanding of sample size calculations for research studies
between participants attending a lecture only versus lecture combined with using
a smartphone application to calculate sample sizes, to explore factors affecting
level of post-test score after training sample size calculation, and to investigate
participants’ attitude toward a sample size application. A cluster-randomized
controlled trial involving a number of health institutes in Thailand was carried
out from October 2014 to March 2015. A total of 673 professional participants
were enrolled and randomly allocated to one of two groups, namely, 341 participants
in 10 workshops to control group and 332 participants in 9 workshops to
intervention group. Lectures on sample size calculation were given in the control
group, while lectures using a smartphone application were supplied to the test
group. Participants in the intervention group had better learning of sample size
calculation (2.7 points out of maximnum 10 points, 95% CI: 24 - 2.9) than the
participants in the control group (1.6 points, 95% CI: 1.4 - 1.8). Participants doing
research projects had a higher post-test score than those who did not have a
plan to conduct research projects (0.9 point, 95% CI: 0.5 - 1.4). The majority of the
participants had a positive attitude towards the use of smartphone application
for learning sample size calculation.