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. 2015 Sep 28;17(9):e223.
doi: 10.2196/jmir.3814.

Moving Knowledge Acquisition From the Lecture Hall to the Student Home: A Prospective Intervention Study

Tobias Raupach  1 , Clemens Grefe, Jamie Brown, Katharina Meyer, Nikolai Schuelper, Sven Anders
Affiliations

Moving Knowledge Acquisition From the Lecture Hall to the Student Home: A Prospective Intervention Study

Tobias Raupach et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Podcasts are popular with medical students, but the impact of podcast use on learning outcomes in undergraduate medical education has not been studied in detail.

Objective: Our aim was to assess the impact of podcasts accompanied by quiz questions and lecture attendance on short- and medium-term knowledge retention.

Methods: Students enrolled for a cardio-respiratory teaching module were asked to prepare for 10 specific lectures by watching podcasts and submitting answers to related quiz questions before attending live lectures. Performance on the same questions was assessed in a surprise test and a retention test.

Results: Watching podcasts and submitting answers to quiz questions (versus no podcast/quiz use) was associated with significantly better test performance in all items in the surprise test and 7 items in the retention test. Lecture attendance (versus no attendance) was associated with higher test performance in 3 items and 1 item, respectively. In a linear regression analysis adjusted for age, gender, and overall performance levels, both podcast/quiz use and lecture attendance were significant predictors of student performance. However, the variance explained by podcast/quiz use was greater than the variance explained by lecture attendance in the surprise test (38.7% vs. 2.2%) and retention test (19.1% vs. 4.0%).

Conclusions: When used in conjunction with quiz questions, podcasts have the potential to foster knowledge acquisition and retention over and above the effect of live lectures.

Keywords: knowledge; lecture; medical education; podcast; retention.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study outline (numbers in boxes correspond to the 10 lectures used for this study, and vertical dotted lines indicate the date on which live lectures were held). For each lecture, podcasts were available over a period of 7 days leading up to the live lecture. During this time, students were invited to submit their quiz answers.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Student performance in the surprise and retention tests (columns represent the percentage of students providing a correct answer; error bars represent standard errors). * P<.05 for direct comparison (chi-square test); § P<.05 in a logistic regression adjusted for age, gender, exam performance, and lecture attendance; # P<.05 in a logistic regression adjusted for age, gender, exam performance, and podcast use.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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