Evaluating the effect of instruction and practice schedule on the acquisition of ECG interpretation skills.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Evidence of the benefit of distributed instruction and interleaved practice comes from studies using simple materials (e. g. word pairs). Furthermore, there is currently no evidence of the combined impact of these strategies in undergraduate medical education. The present study evaluated the impact of varying both instruction and practice schedules for the acquisition of ECG interpretation skills.

Methods

We conducted a 2 × 2 factorial study with two levels of instruction (massed and distributed) and two levels of practice (interleaved and blocked). A three-module introductory course in ECG interpretation was delivered to 80 first year medical undergraduate students. Students were assigned to one of four Instruction-Practice conditions: Massed-Interleaved, Masse

SUBMITTER: Monteiro S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5542896 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature