[Evaluation and criteria of choice of urology teaching material used by hospital students to prepare for the national entrance examination].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Preparation for the national entrance examination is a major concern for hospital medical students. Many teaching materials are available to prepare for the urology module: faculty photocopies and general urology texts. The objective of this study was to determine the selection criteria used by medical students to choose their urology teaching materials, in preparation for the national entrance examination. MATERIAL AND METHOD A questionnaire was distributed to 200 medical students (4th and 6th year students) preparing for the national entrance examination. This questionnaire comprised three parts: (1) information about the student (medical school, attendance of lectures, participation in intern conferences); (2) student's level of satisfaction with the teaching material provided;(3) criteria of choice (18 items) of the photocopies used. RESULTS Out of the 200 students completing the questionnaire, only 32% used teaching material provided by the university and 22% reported that their medical school did not provide Urology teaching material. Fifty-nine percent of students thought that this teaching material was "moderately" to "not at all adapted" to the national entrance examination programme and 70% considered that they were "moderately" to "not at all" prepared for the national entrance examination. We noted that 83.5% of students thought that intern conferences were "useful" to "very useful" to prepare the urology module of the national entrance examination and 85% thought that photocopies were "useful" to "very useful" to prepare the national entrance examination. The College of urology photocopies were the most widely used teaching material: 38% of students. The four most important criteria of choices were "their peers' opinion", "the style of presentation and writing" and "advice from interns". "The author" and "price" were only rated in 11th and 12th positions. CONCLUSION In this study, students appeared to consider that the material provided by medical schools was insufficient and poorly adapted to prepare for the national entrance examination in Urology. In contrast, College of urology photocopies appeared to be a satisfactory study tool, in terms of presentation and writing.