Effects of a patient's name and image on medical knowledge acquisition
Abstract
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The two-fold aim of this study was to determine if there are differences in medical students' (MS) knowledge acquisition after being provided with (1) virtual patient (VP) case summaries with a patient's name and facial image included and with no patient's name or facial image; and (2) complete VP cases and their summaries. Seventy six MS from four clerkship blocs participated in this study. MS from bloc one (n =18) and three (n=22) were provided with a VP case summary containing a patient's name and facial image while MS from bloc two (n=17) and four (n=19) were provided with a similar summary but without the patient's name or facial image. All MS completed an examination (CQA_K) to assess knowledge acquisition from the summary in addition to their routine clerkship examinations (CQ1, CQ2, CQ3, and CQ4). CQA_K score was 64.65% for bloc one and 76.03% for bloc three. Bloc two score was 71.66% and 68.42% for bloc four. F-test was not significant between blocs; F (3, 72) = 1.678, p = 0.179. MS mean score on the CQA_K was 70.46%, 79.08% on CQ1, 85.38% on CQ2, 84.32% on CQ3, and 81.34% on CQ4. F-test revealed a significant difference between tests' scores; F (4, 375) = 14.34, p [less-than] 0.0001. Pairwise comparisons demonstrated a statistically significantly lower score on the CQA_K compared to the other tests. The results of this study show that including a name and facial image on MS' instructional materials may not improve knowledge acquisition and that providing a VP case summary may result in less knowledge acquisition than providing complete VP cases. Corroborating studies should be performed before applying these results to the design of medical instructional materials.
Degree
Ph. D.
Thesis Department
Rights
Access is limited to the campus of the University of Missouri--Columbia.