Abstract: Objective To research the effectiveness of participatory teaching in maternal and child health care teaching.Methods One hundred and fifty four undergraduate students Majoring in Preventive Medicine from School of Public Health,Peking University were selected as the subjects.Seventy six students in grade 2014 were selected as the experimental group and seventy eight students in grade 2013 as the control group.The experimental group used participatory teaching in small classes,while the control group used traditional teaching in large classes.Quantitative and qualitative research methods such as questionnaire survey and focus group discussion were used to evaluate the intervention effect of maternal and child health courses.Students' satisfaction and overall evaluation of the curriculum were compared and students' opinions and suggestions on participatory teaching in small classes were collected.Results The score of the experimental group in terms of overall satisfaction,good teaching,generic skills,clear goals and standards and appropriate workload were (4.24±0.78,4.05±0.57,4.07±0.55,3.90±0.57,3.49±0.78),which was higher than those in the control group (3.92±0.94,3.79±0.76,3.72±0.84,3.59±0.63,3.16±0.67) (all P<0.05).There were no statistically significant in the overall evaluation of the curriculum among the sub-groups in the intervention group (P>0.05).In focus group discussion,experimental group students had a better evaluation of participatory teaching in small classes and put forward suggestions for curriculum improvement.Conclusions Participatory teaching in maternal and child health care can help to improve student's curriculum experience,satisfaction and basic skills.The teaching effectiveness of each small class has good parallelism.Participatory teaching is feasible in maternal and child health courses.

Key words: Participatory teaching, Maternal and child health care, Course experience questionnaire, Preventive medicine