Quantitative results of the analysis of students scores in a subject of the Department of Histology of the Medical School of the University of Granada, Spain

This is the dataset for the manuscript entitled "The impact of COVID-19 pre-university education on first-grade medical students. A performance study in students of a Department of Histology" in which the scores obtained by students of a subject of the medical curriculum were analyzed. Results obtained by each student are shown for 5 academic courses (2019-2020 to 2023-2024).

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic forced pre-university professionals to significantly modify the educative system, and several adaptations and changes were implemented both in the students’ curriculum and teaching and evaluation methods. These changes may have influenced formation and capabilities of students accessing the Medical School.

Methods: We evaluated the performance of students enrolled in a subject taught at the first year of the medical curriculum by the Department of Histology in students corresponding to the last 5 academic courses, including 2 pre-pandemic courses (PRE), 2 post-pandemic courses (POST) and an intermediate course (INT) who received one year of pre-university high school education under the pandemic situation. Evaluation was performed using the results of a multiple-choice questions final examination. Consistency analysis among periods was performed using the Cronbach alpha coefficient (α), the difficulty index with random effects correction (DI) and the point biserial correlation index (PB). Performance was compared among the 5 academic courses using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney statistical tests, and correlations with the academic course were evaluated using the Kendall tau test.

Results: Our results show that the 5 evaluation tests were homogeneous and had similar difficultness, with non-significant differences for α, DI and PB. Performance of the students significantly varied among periods of tie, with a significant tendency to decrease in POST students as compared to PRE students, and a correlation between performance and the academic course. Few differences were found between male and female students. Then, we found a significant trend to decrease the percentage of correct answers with the academic course, with POST students showing significantly lower results than PRE students, whereas few differences were detected for the percentage of questions answered incorrectly. Significantly higher percentages of unanswered questions were found in POST students.

Conclusions: These results confirm the negative impact of the POST pre-university educative system on the performance of students accessing the medical school and suggest that POST students could have higher degree of uncertainty. Specific education programs should be implemented during the first years of the medical curriculum to tailor this effect and increase self-confidence of the students facing a final examination