Effectiveness of simulation-based training for obstetric internal medicine: Impact of cognitive load and emotions on knowledge acquisition and retention.

Background: Simulation-based training's impact on learning outcomes may be related to cognitive load or emotions during training. We evaluated the association of validated measures of cognitive load and emotion with learning outcomes in simulation-based obstetric internal medicine cases.

Methods: All internal medicine learners (n = 15) who completed the knowledge test pre-training, post-training (knowledge acquisition), and at 3-6 months (knowledge retention) for all three simulation cases were included.

Cognitive Load Theory for debriefing simulations: implications for faculty development.

The debriefing is an essential component of simulation-based training for healthcare professionals, but learning this complex skill can be challenging for simulation faculty. There are multiple competing priorities for a debriefer's attention that can contribute to a high mental workload, which may adversely affect debriefer performance and consequently learner outcomes. In this paper, we conceptualize the debriefer as a learner of debriefing skills and we discuss Cognitive Load Theory to categorize the many potential mental loads that can affect the faculty debriefer as learner.

The attributes of an effective teacher differ between the classroom and the clinical setting.

Most training programs use learners' subjective ratings of their teachers as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness. In a recent study we found that preclinical medical students' ratings of classroom teachers were associated with perceived charisma and physical attractiveness of the teacher, but not intellect. Here we explored whether the relationship between these variables and teaching effectiveness ratings holds in the clinical setting.