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

Sponsor

Harvard University Faculty of Medicine (Other)

Overall Status

Completed

CT.gov ID

NCT01286025

Collaborator

(none)

Enrollment

Location

Arms

Duration (Months)

2.3

Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

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

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
Education, Medical Education, Medical, Undergraduate Problem-based Learning Problem Solving Interactive Tutorial	Behavioral: video case modality Behavioral: Text case modality	N/A

Detailed 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.

Study Design

Study Type:

Interventional

Actual Enrollment :

28 participants

Allocation:

Randomized

Intervention Model:

Crossover Assignment

Masking:

None (Open Label)

Primary Purpose:

Health Services Research

Official Title:

A Randomized Crossover Study to Compare the Critical Thinking of Medical Students When Using Video-based or Written Cases

Study Start Date :

Feb 1, 2008

Actual Primary Completion Date :

Feb 1, 2009

Actual Study Completion Date :

Feb 1, 2009

Arms and Interventions

Arm	Intervention/Treatment
Active Comparator: Video modality	Behavioral: video case modality Patients whose case histories are pathophysiologically illustrative will be recruited, and interviewed on video. Their stories will be edited and divided into sections, and combined with the patient's laboratory, imaging, and pathological reports when appropriate
Active Comparator: Text modality	Behavioral: Text case modality Patients whose case histories are pathophysiologically illustrative will be recruited, and interviewed on video. Their stories will be edited and divided into sections, and combined with the patient's laboratory, imaging, and pathological reports when appropriate. The transcript of these video-recordings will form the basis of the text-based case presentation modality.

Arm

Intervention/Treatment

Active Comparator: Video modality

Behavioral: video case modality

Patients whose case histories are pathophysiologically illustrative will be recruited, and interviewed on video. Their stories will be edited and divided into sections, and combined with the patient's laboratory, imaging, and pathological reports when appropriate

Active Comparator: Text modality

Behavioral: Text case modality

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

Overall ratio of deep to superficial thinking [Four 90-minute tutorial sessions]
Depth of thinking will be evaluated using the method of Kamin et al. Transcription of each tutorial will be divided into utterances. Each utterance will be coded for depth of thinking (deep vs. superficial). The ratio of deep to superficial thinking by case modality will be reported.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Distribution of learning activities [Four 90-min tutorial sessions]
Transcription of each tutorial will be divided into utterances. Each utterance will be coded by learning domain (identification, description, exploration, integration, and application. The distribution of domains by case modality will be reported.
Preferences of students for each case modality [5 weeks]
Students will be surveyed regarding their preferences for video- vs. text-based case presentation modality using a Likert-scale
Preferences of tutors for each case modality [5 weeks]
Tutors will be surveyed regarding their preferences for video- vs. text-based case presentation modality using a Likert-scale

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study:

18 Years to 65 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study:

All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers:

Yes

Inclusion Criteria:

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

Exclusion Criteria:

None

Contacts and Locations

Locations

	Site	City	State	Country	Postal Code
1	Harvard Medical School	Boston	Massachusetts	United States	02115

Sponsors and Collaborators

Harvard University Faculty of Medicine

Investigators

Principal Investigator: Graham T McMahon, MD MMSc, Harvard Medical School (HMS and HSDM)

Study Documents (Full-Text)

None provided.

More Information

Publications

None provided.

Responsible Party:

, ,

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:

NCT01286025

Other Study ID Numbers:

M15700-101

First Posted:

Jan 31, 2011

Last Update Posted:

Jan 31, 2011

Last Verified:

Jan 1, 2011

Keywords provided by , ,

medical education

problem-based learning

interactive tutorial

Study Results

No Results Posted as of Jan 31, 2011