2010 Meeting

Improving Long-Term Retention: Comparing Team-Based Learning with Lecture in Pre-Clinical Pediatrics

Amanda R. Emke, MD Washington University School of Medicine

Background: Pre-clinical medical students must establish a fund of knowledge that is retained throughout their clinical training. To this end, various active-learning models have been developed to improve long-term retention of knowledge. However, the effects on long-term retention produced by Team-Based Learning (TBL), a relatively recently utilized active-learning model in medical education, have never been studied.

Objective: Our study investigates the long-term retention of pre-clinical pediatric knowledge learned through TBL compared with knowledge learned through a lecture-based curriculum.

Methods and Materials: The pre-clinical pediatric course historically consisted of 16 hours of lectures. During the 2008-2009 academic year, the course was changed to include 7 hours of lectures and 10 hours TBL. The 2008-2009 class consisted of 122 second year medical students that were followed through their third year pediatric clerkship and compared to 122 historical controls from the 2007-2008 academic year. Students in both groups completed multiple choice knowledge-based exams at the beginning and end of the second course and the beginning and end of the third year clerkship.

Results: Performance on the multiple choice test will be compared between the two groups to determine if long-term retention is improved with TBL compared to a traditional lecture-based curriculum. Historical control group data has been collected and is being analyzed. Experimental group data is still being collected. We expect preliminary results to be available by spring 2010.