The effect of feedback in learning clinical diagnosis

Abstract

There is evidence that students who are given information about how they appear to weight information in reaching a judgment can learn to make judgments more accurately. In teaching medical diagnosis, the present authors used a microcomputer system to generate simulated cases and then calculate the relationship between the data presented and the student's diagnosis. Students who were given feedback comparing their apparent weighting of clinical information with the correct weighting learned to diagnose urinary tract infection more accurately than control students who received feedback only on the outcome of their diagnosis.