Use of an Online Curriculum to Teach Delirium to Fourth‐Year Medical Students: A Comparison with Lecture Format

Abstract

Web-based learning methods are being used increasingly to teach core curriculum in medical school clerkships, but few studies have compared the effectiveness of online methods with that of live lectures in teaching the same topics to students. Boston University School of Medicine has implemented an online, case-based, interactive curriculum using videos and text to teach delirium to fourth-year medical students during their required 1-month Geriatrics and Home Medical Care clerkship. A control group of 56 students who received a 1-hour live delirium lecture only was compared with 111 intervention group students who completed the online delirium curriculum only. Evaluation consisted of a short-answer test with two cases given as a pre- and posttest to both groups. The total possible maximum test score was 34 points, and the lowest possible score was -8 points. Mean pre- and posttest scores were 10.5 ± 4.0 and 12.7 ± 4.4, respectively, in the intervention group and 9.9 ± 3.5 and 11.2 ± 4.5, respectively, in the control group. The intervention group had statistically significant improvement between the pre- and posttest scores (2.21-point difference; P < .001), as did the control group (1.36-point difference; P = .03); the difference in test score improvement between the two groups was not statistically significant. An interactive case-based online curriculum in delirium is as effective as a live lecture in teaching delirium, although neither of these educational methods alone produces robust increases in knowledge.

The Comparison of Lecture-Based and Web-Based Education on Nursing Students’ Learning in the Management of Radiation Injuries

“…In the current study, the mean scores before and after intervention in each of the groups (lecture-based and web-based) showed that in both groups, the postintervention scores increased significantly. Similar results were observed in the review of all available studies [17,25,29,30,34], but in the previous studies, except for the study by Farshi et al (2012), the mean scores were evaluated only at the post-intervention stage [33]. However, in the current study, the scores were evaluated four weeks after the intervention in order to evaluate the retention, which was one of the advantages of the study.…”

The Flipped Classroom Improved Medical Student Performance and Satisfaction in a Pre-clinical Physiology Course

“…Further, it is also clear that some do not consider online videos an equivalent to a live lecture, even though studies have shown that outcomes vary little between online and live instruction [34,35]. Comments by several students expressed preferences for lecture over the flipped classroom that centered around missing the theater of lecture, i.e., the stories that lecturers tell as they are presenting the material [36][37][38].…”

Does online learning work better than offline learning in undergraduate medical education? A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Sixteen identified articles were clustered by the statistical methods used (Figure 3), specifically by the number of outcome comparisons. Among them, 13 articles reported only one comparison arm based on one or more statistical method based on ANOVA: 10 articles compared post-test scores [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]; 1 article compared pre-and post-test score gains [30]; 1 article compared both post-test scores and pre-and post-test score gains on the same sample [31]; and 1 article compared all post-test scores, pre-and post-test score gains and retention test scores on the same sample [32]. All of comparison results above were included in metaanalysis but assessed under different genres.…”