Effect evaluation
Medical students were asked to complete a self-rated survey both before and after taking courses using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The survey items included student perceptions towards epidemiological courses, course understanding and clinical practice competencies. Comparisons were conducted of the average survey scores between the different groups and those of the same group from before and after taking the epidemiological course. Furthermore, we tested all participants with theoretical and case-related single-choice questions after the course. The test questions were related to epidemiological characteristics, participants, sampling methods, statistical methods, statistic description, research bias and the application issues of these contents in practical cases. Test score of theoretical part, case analysis part and total score between the experimental and control groups were compared.