Pundaree Benjarattanaporn
Nawasiri Siriprasert¹ and Sira Vachatimanont^2,3
1 Chulalongkorn University International Doctor of Medicine Program (CU-MEDi), Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University
2 Chulalongkorn University
3 King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thai Red Cross Society 

PowerPoint and Prezi are popular multimedia tools in medical education. With limited comparative evidence on these software's effectiveness and perception, we conducted a study to assess and compare the impact on knowledge acquisition, retention, and perception among medical students following the utilization of PowerPoint and Prezi in teaching bone mineral density. We aim to understand how these tools enhance assessment-driven learning for medical students. 

The students took a quiz and were divided into two groups. Each group watched recorded lectures with PowerPoint and Prezi, respectively. They took the same test immediately after watching (acquisition test) and 2 weeks afterwards (retention test). The students’ perceptions were obtained from anonymous questionnaires. 

From the class of 35 students, 31 took the pre-test, 35 took the acquisition, 25 took the retention tests. The acquisition test scores (M = 10.0, SD = 1.91) were higher than the pre-test test scores (M = 6.52, SD = 2.58; p <.001). The retention test scores (M = 11.5, SD = 2.28) were higher than the acquisition test (p = .009), and the pre-test (p < .0.001) scores. Between groups, the score increases from the pre-test to the acquisition test (p = .057), the pre-test to the retention test (p = .089), and the retention test to the acquisition test (p = .079) were not different. From the 22 respondents, there were no significant differences between Prezi and PowerPoint in terms of engagingness (p = 0.115), helpfulness for understanding the overview (p = .212), and the problems encountered using the media (p = .121). They found that Prezi was more confusing (p = .034), more distracting (p < .001), and less helpful (p < .001). 

Both PowerPoint and Prezi could lead to similar knowledge acquisition and retention. However, there was a significant preference towards PowerPoint as a teaching medium. 

References (maximum three) 

1. Duffy, R. M., Guerandel, A., Casey, P., Malone, K., & Kelly, B. D. (2015). Experiences of Using Prezi in Psychiatry Teaching. Academic Psychiatry: the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the 

Association for Academic Psychiatry, 39(6), 615–619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596- 014-0204-x