Evaluation of Perceptions of the Faculty and Students towards CBME: Quantitative Study in a Medical College

Abstract

Introduction: The National Medical Commission has reformed undergraduate medical education in India by introducing Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME), replacing the traditional time-based curriculum with one structured around defined clinical, ethical, and communication competencies. As faculty and students are the primary stakeholders who operationalise this reform, their perceptions are central to judging its success. This study evaluated the perceptions of faculty and students towards CBME and its implementation in a medical college.

Methodology: This observational, cross-sectional study was conducted at Shivamogga Institute of Medical Sciences, Shivamogga, Karnataka, from June to December 2023. All non-contractual faculty (n=140) and all students excluding the newly admitted Phase 1 MBBS batch (n=600) were eligible for inclusion. Two separate, pre-validated, structured questionnaires — one for faculty and one for students — containing closed- and open-ended items on the major CBME domains were administered via Google Forms, circulated through WhatsApp, after obtaining Institutional Ethics Committee approval and informed consent. Responses were recorded on a three-point Likert scale (Agree, Neutral, Disagree), and analysed as frequencies and percentages; open-ended responses were analysed using content analysis.

Result: Sixty faculty (42.9%) and 424 students (70.7%) responded. Both groups showed broadly favourable perceptions of CBME's core philosophy, with 71.7–90.0% endorsing its alignment with global trends, competency-based structuring, and integration as a teaching method. However, faculty confidence in implementation lagged behind conceptual agreement: only 51.7% felt the Foundation Course was properly implemented and 35% felt integration, alignment and AETCOM principles were genuinely followed, while skill-lab infrastructure (21.7%) and newer assessment methods (16.7%) were rated poorly. Students similarly rated experiential elements (alignment, Early Clinical Exposure) highly, but Self-Directed Learning (61.3%) and logbook maintenance (46.0%) lower.

Conclusion: Faculty and students hold a largely positive perception of CBME's underlying philosophy, but implementation-level gaps — particularly in infrastructure, faculty training, and documentation-heavy components — remain a barrier to its satisfactory execution and warrant structured institutional attention.