抄録
The Physiology Education Sharing Group, a special interest group of the Physiological Society of Japan, has launched the "Physiology: the first step" project (http://physiology1.org).
In this project, the proposal of presenting information "discretely, non-ambiguously and accurately " was applied to physiology education. For example, in "Cardiac cycle: the first step", only the basic essential information, namely the contraction/relaxation of the ventricle wall, pressure of the atrium, ventricle, and artery, the opening/closing of the atrioventricular and arterial valves, and blood flow in the left heart system are illustrated and presented in a step-by-step manner. After self-studying, twenty-six first-year blinded medical students, randomly assigned to either the new material or a conventional material with a typical figure and text, were given the same quiz (30 two-item choice questions asking basic essential information). The number of correct answers, scored by a blinded rater, was 25.7 ± 3.7 (mean ± SD) in the conventional group and 29.4 ± 1.1 in the first-step group (p < 0.01). Other organs, such as the nervous system, kidney, hormones, immune system and respiration, are also presented in a similar manner. The project also provides numerous achievement quizzes to give students an opportunity to actively use their newly gained knowledge. The website is being accessed about 40,000 times a year, and has been ranked highly by various search engines both internationally and domestically. [Jpn J Physiol 54 Suppl:S11 (2004)]
