Medical education videos as a tool for rehearsal: efficiency and the cases of background music and difficulty

Abstract

This study reports a field experiment investigating how instructional videos with and without background music contribute to the learning of examination techniques within a formal curriculum of medical teaching. Following a classroom teaching unit on the techniques for examining the knee and the shoulder joint, our participants (N = 175) rehearsed the studied techniques for either the knee or the shoulder joint with an instructional video with or without background music. As dependent measures, we collected a general questionnaire, a prediction of test performance, as well as performance on an exam-like knowledge test covering both joints. For both videos, the participants who had watched the particular video during rehearsal were more accurate in answering the corresponding questions than the participants who had seen the other video, signaling that instructional videos provide a useful tool for rehearsal (i.e., both groups reciprocally served as control groups). For the knee video (less difficult), we observed a detrimental effect of the background music, whereas we observed no such effect for the shoulder video (more difficult). Further explorations revealed that background music might be detrimental for learning, as it reduces the perceived demand characteristics. Because the impact of the demand characteristics might be more pronounced in less difficult instructional videos, we discuss video difficulty as a potential moderating factor. Overall, our study provides evidence that instructional videos could be usefully implemented in formal teaching curricula and that such instructional videos probably should be designed without background music.

Keywords: Instructional video; Learning; Rehearsal.

Fig. 1

Exemplary screenshots from the two videos illustrating the examination techniques for the knee joint (upper row) and the shoulder joint (lower row). The second column represents the general introduction to the anatomy of the corresponding joint at the beginning of the video. The third column represents the introduction of specific examination techniques. The fourth column represents the demonstration of the examination technique with real patients

Fig. 2

Results of the knowledge tests. The content of the video as well as the presence of background music was manipulated between participants. The congruency between the content of the video and the questions was manipulated within participants (i.e., each participant saw only one video but answered both types of questions). Error bars indicate the SEM

Fig. 3

Predicted test score (0–5) prior to the knowledge test. The content of the video as well as the presence of background music was manipulated between participants. The congruency between the content of the video and the questions was manipulated within participants. Error bars indicate the SEM