Abstract
Objective
As medical schools reform clinical curricula, an increasing amount of time is spent in active learning activities. The authors hypothesized that students who spent more time in active learning educational activities (e.g., team-based learning, small group activities, clinical simulation) would receive higher NBME Subject Exam scores compared to students with less.
Methods
This cohort study included 518 students from 2014 to 2016 who completed at least six contiguous weeks of a psychiatry clerkship. Active learning time percent was calculated by dividing the amount of time in active learning by the total in-classroom time during the clerkship. Analysis was conducted using ANOVA and linear regression.
Results
Analysis found that increasing the amount of active learning was not significantly associated with student scores on the NBME Subject Exam in psychiatry (F = 0.91, p = 0.402). However, when controlling for possible confounding variables (including clerkship length and order), clerkship order was a significant predictor of student performance (r = 0.19, β = 0.18, p < 0.0001); students who took the clerkship later in the academic year—and after the internal medicine rotation—performed significantly better on the exam.
Conclusions
This study found that increasing the amount of active learning did not improve student performance on the NBME Subject Exam in psychiatry. This study provides preliminary, but unexpected, evidence of interest to medical educators and curriculum reformers that increasing the amount of active learning is not significantly associated with improved student test performance.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Julia Frank, MD, Eindra Khin Khin, MD, and Charles Samenow, MD, MPH (all at George Washington University) for their support of this project as the clerkship directors during the years of this study, Amir Afkhami, MD, PhD (George Washington University) for assistance in the ethical approval process and serving as a resource when planning this study, and Catherine Zatorski, MD (Lehigh Valley Hospital) for her editorial comments and suggestions. These findings were previously presented at the 2017 Meeting of the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry.
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Study received a waiver from the GWU IRB. Data from student subjects was de-identified before analysis to protect confidentiality.
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Crisafio, A., Cho, S.H. Impact of Varying Active Learning Time on Student Performance on a Standardized Exam in the Psychiatry Clerkship. Acad Psychiatry 44, 196–199 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-019-01147-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-019-01147-2