Medical student use of practice questions in their studies: a qualitative study

Practice questions are highly sought out for use as a study tool among medical students in undergraduate medical education. At the same time, it remains unknown how medical students use and incorporate practice questions and their rationales into their studies. To explore this heavily relied upon st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC medical education 2024-10, Vol.24 (1), p.1181-7, Article 1181
Main Authors: Sheehy, Ryan, Scott, Devin, Davis, Diveena, Roffler, Marissa, Sweatman, Trevor, Nemec, Eric
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult Basic Education
Adult Students
Analysis
Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
College students
Curricula
Education, Medical, Undergraduate
Educational Measurement
Educational objectives
Educational research
Educational tests and measurements
Examinations
Extracurricular activities
Female
Humans
Internet resources
Interviews
Interviews as Topic
Learning
Licensing examinations
Male
Medical education
Medical school
Medical schools
Medical students
Methods
Practice questions
Professionals
Qualitative Research
Self evaluation
Students, Medical - psychology
Study strategies
Test Preparation
Undergraduate medical education
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Summary:Practice questions are highly sought out for use as a study tool among medical students in undergraduate medical education. At the same time, it remains unknown how medical students use and incorporate practice questions and their rationales into their studies. To explore this heavily relied upon study strategy, semi-structured interviews were conducted with second-year medical students to assess how they approach using practice questions. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed several recurrent themes: (1) Medical students use practice questions for primary learning, (2) Medical students place more importance on the rationale of a practice question versus selecting the right answer, and (3) Medical students view practice questions as being designed to be used once or having a single-use. Together, these themes provide insight into how medical students use practice questions to study, which may guide medical educators in their creation of practice questions with appropriate rationales and provide foundational data for future mixed methods analyses seeking to generalize these findings.
ISSN:1472-6920
1472-6920
DOI:10.1186/s12909-024-06168-6