Timing's not everything: Immediate and delayed feedback are equally beneficial for performance in formative multiple-choice testing.

Introduction: Test-enhanced learning (TEL) is an impactful teaching and learning strategy that prioritises active learner engagement through the process of regular testing and reviewing. While it is clear that meaningful feedback optimises the effects of TEL, the ideal timing of this feedback (i.e.

Beyond right or wrong: More effective feedback for formative multiple-choice tests.

Introduction: The role of feedback in test-enhanced learning is an understudied area that has the potential to improve student learning. This study investigates the influence of different forms of post-test feedback on retention and transfer of biomedical knowledge within a test-enhanced learning framework.

Methods: 64 participants from a Canadian and an Australian medical school sat two single-best-answer formative multiple choice tests one week apart.

Planning Education for Long-Term Retention: The Cognitive Science and Implementation of Retrieval Practice.

Educational systems are rarely designed for long-term retention of information. Strong evidence has emerged from cognitive psychology and applied education studies that repeated retrieval of information significantly improves retention compared to repeated studying. This effect likely emerges from the processes of memory consolidation and reconsolidation.

Tying knots: an activity theory analysis of student learning goals in clinical education.

Context: Learning goal programmes are often created to help students develop self-regulated learning skills; however, these programmes do not necessarily consider the social contexts surrounding learning goals or how they fit into daily educational practice.

Objectives: We investigated a high-frequency learning goal programme in which students generated and shared weekly learning goals with their clinical teams in core Year 3 clerkships. Our study explores: (i) how learning goals were incorporated into the clinical work, and (ii) the factors that influenced the use of students' learning goals in work-based learning.

Student views on the role of self-regulated learning in a surgery clerkship.

Background: Self-regulated learning, including student-generated learning goals and flexibility in the learning structure are increasingly being used to enhance medical education. The role of these practices in surgical education of medical students has not been studied.

Materials And Methods: We administered an 18-question electronic survey to all third-year medical students at Washington University in St.

High-Frequency Learning Goals: Using Self-Regulated Learning to Influence Day-to-Day Practice in Clinical Education.

Problem: Although self-regulated learning (SRL) is considered a fundamental skill that must be developed in physician training, many programs of SRL utilize learning goals that are generated only at the beginning of learning experiences or are widely spaced apart in time. These goals are often not formally shared with those actually working with the learner in the clinical setting.

Intervention: We developed a program of written, student-generated weekly learning goals in which students focused on processes of becoming better doctors for their patients.

Using reflection to influence practice: student perceptions of daily reflection in clinical education.

Purpose: Reflection is a key element in learning from experience, but the impact of most programmes of reflection on daily practice remains unclear. We investigated students' perceptions of adding a daily written reflection assignment to a clinical rotation.

Methods: Third-year medical students on a single two-week rotation completed daily reflections analyzing their performance.

Student-directed retrieval practice is a predictor of medical licensing examination performance.

Introduction: A large body of evidence indicates that retrieval practice (test-enhanced learning) and spaced repetition increase long-term information retention. Implementation of these strategies in medical curricula is unfortunately limited. However, students may choose to apply them autonomously when preparing for high-stakes, cumulative assessments, such as the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1.

Effects of Team-Based Learning on short-term and long-term retention of factual knowledge.

Purpose: We investigated the effect of Team-Based Learning (TBL) on long-term retention of knowledge in comparison to a traditional curriculum.

Methods: As TBL was incorporated into our curriculum in the 2008-2009 academic year, students were compared with those who received the traditional curriculum the year prior. Students in both the groups completed multiple-choice knowledge test at four time points spanning two years.

The effects of test-enhanced learning on long-term retention in AAN annual meeting courses.

Objective: We measured the long-term retention of knowledge gained through selected American Academy of Neurology annual meeting courses and compared the effects of repeated quizzing (known as test-enhanced learning) and repeated studying on that retention.

Methods: Participants were recruited from 4 annual meeting courses. All participants took a pretest.

Comparative effects of test-enhanced learning and self-explanation on long-term retention.

Context: Educators often encourage students to engage in active learning by generating explanations for the material being learned, a method called self-explanation. Studies have also demonstrated that repeated testing improves retention. However, no studies have directly compared the two learning methods.

The importance of seeing the patient: test-enhanced learning with standardized patients and written tests improves clinical application of knowledge.

Previous research has shown that repeated retrieval with written tests produces superior long-term retention compared to repeated study. However, the degree to which this increased retention transfers to clinical application has not been investigated. In addition, increased retention obtained through written testing has not been compared to other forms of testing, such as simulation testing with a standardized patient (SP).

Repeated testing improves long-term retention relative to repeated study: a randomised controlled trial.

Context: Laboratory studies in cognitive psychology with relatively brief final recall intervals suggest that repeated retrieval in the form of tests may result in better retention of information compared with repeated study.

Objectives: Our study evaluates if repeated testing of material taught in a real-life educational setting (a didactic conference for paediatric and emergency medicine residents) replicates these findings when measured at a more educationally relevant final recall interval of 6 months.

Methods: Residents participated in an interactive teaching session on two topics: (i) status epilepticus, and (ii) myasthenia gravis.

Test-enhanced learning in medical education.

Context: In education, tests are primarily used for assessment, thus permitting teachers to assess the efficacy of their curriculum and to assign grades. However, research in cognitive psychology has shown that tests can also directly affect learning by promoting better retention of information, a phenomenon known as the testing effect.

Cognitive Psychology Research: Cognitive psychology laboratory studies show that repeated testing of information produces superior retention relative to repeated study, especially when testing is spaced out over time.