The Powerful Effects of Quizzing on Residents’ Learning and Board Outcomes
A study on 51 OBGYN residents at Indiana University found that implementing TrueLearn’s question bank and mock ITE significantly improved ITE scores—by up to 9.0%.1 The powerful impact of quizzing in elevating learning and exam outcomes is not surprising as it combines the proven effects of two cognitive science strategies: practice retrieval and spaced repetition. This “spacing-retrieval” effect amplifies memory encoding, long-term knowledge storage and retention, and easy recall of information more effectively compared to using either strategy alone.
Residency program directors and academic chief residents can leverage quizzing as a tool to streamline group board review sessions during dedicated academic hours leading up to exams. Here are three ways to synchronize board review with quizzing:
- Review board-style questions as a group during didactics to incorporate active learning and engage residents in group discussion
- Generate weekly quizzes to assess knowledge and review most missed questions in a group setting
- Use mock assessments to benchmark performance and help focus future board review sessions on the program’s weakest categories
Additionally, with the right resources, quizzing can provide program directors and faculty with real-time performance data and feedback to quickly and objectively gauge residents’ comprehension, highlight knowledge gaps, pinpoint individual strengths and weaknesses, and identify those who are at risk of failing or underperforming. These insights will inform program directors on developing separate remediation plans for underperforming residents and help optimize academic hours by surfacing objective performance data to guide content focus leading up to board exams. By maximizing their board readiness, residents have a good chance of obtaining optimal ITE scores, which then improves the success rates of their fellowship match and leads to a first-time pass on their licensure exam.
Program directors can ensure residents are on track to meet program, board, and fellowship goals by incorporating quizzing across the curriculum through a proven solution such as TrueLearn.
- Review board-style questions as a group during didactics to incorporate active learning and engage residents in group discussion
- Generate weekly quizzes to assess knowledge and review most missed questions in a group setting
- Use mock assessments to benchmark performance and help focus future board review sessions on the program’s weakest categories
TrueLearn’s Solution for Residency Programs: High-Yield Questions, Customizable Quizzes, Comprehensive Data Analytics
Digital learning platform TrueLearn offers a full suite of curricular tools to support program directors, faculty, and residents toward optimal learning and board outcomes—including quizzing features that can be customized to suit different curricular needs.
Program directors and faculty can pull from our high-yield practice questions and leverage them in didactics or assessments. They can also reserve questions that residents can’t utilize for their independent studies. These questions can then be used for faculty-assigned quizzes, providing a more accurate assessment of residents’ knowledge.
Additionally, TrueLearn sits on a robust data analytics engine with comprehensive reporting capabilities. Programs that partner with us will receive real-time and actionable insights into individual, cohort, program performance, and longitudinal data.
Want to know more about TrueLearn’s quizzing features and other tools for elevating residency learning and board outcomes?
References
1 Scott NP, Martin TW, Schmidt AM, Shanks AL. Impact of an online question bank on resident in-training exam performance. J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2023;10. doi:10.1177/23821205231206221
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