Comparing the Effect of Video-cases and Text-cases on Medical Students' Learning in Tutorial

Harvard University Faculty of Medicine

Status: Completed

Conditions: Education, Medical, Undergraduate; Education, Medical; Problem Solving; Interactive Tutorial; Problem-based Learning

Treatments: Behavioral: video case modality; Behavioral: Text case modality

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01286025

M15700-101

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is designed to examine how the type of learning case affects the thinking of medical students in tutorial

Full description

Tutorials at Harvard Medical School use problem-based learning with written cases. Students work in groups under the supervision of a tutor who guides their exploration of the material. As students progress through the curriculum there is an opportunity to advance the complexity of the material they are presented with. Video-based patient case studies have been shown to improve critical thinking ratios in paediatric medical student problem-based learning exercises, and time spent on data exploration, theory building and theory evaluation in postgraduate residency programs. We hypothesize that video provides a stimulus that improves cognitive processing and critical thinking among medical students, as compared to working from the text-based transcript of the same case.

Enrollment: 28 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• medical student participating in the endocrine and reproductive pathophysiology course at Harvard Medical School

Exclusion criteria

• None

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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28 participants in 2 patient groups

Video modality

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: video case modality

Text modality

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Text case modality