Evaluation of television in the teaching of rheumatology.

Increasing student numbers have encouraged universities to take greater interest in aids to conventional teaching methods. Television is establishing itself in this field, particularly when applied to clinical medicine, an aspect recently reviewed by Day (1972). In rheumatology this medium is little used at present. In his recent survey of teaching aids used in medical schools in Europe, Wood (1971) found that television was employed by only 4 per cent. Before the introduction of such techniques, however, it is necessary to evaluate their effectiveness as a teaching method, and this paper describes an evaluation of television, compared with the conventional lecture, in the teaching of rheumatology.