Evaluation of the ‘Strongest Link’: interactive continuing education
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Context and setting Although continuing medical education (CME) providers are in agreement over the advantages of interactive learning, most doctor learners express a preference for lecture-style formats. Unfortunately, didactic lectures require only 1 teacher for hundreds of learners, whereas small groups require many more teachers. As the cost of providing CME in North America is in the billions of dollars and given that recruiting speakers may be getting more difficult, cost-effective strategies for delivering interactive programmes are clearly needed. Why the idea was necessary One of the more recent developments in CME programming has been the use of game formats for teaching. The idea of using games for medical teaching is not new and games have been used in undergraduate instruction in medicine and nursing. Reports have demonstrated increased satisfaction among participants. Similar articles describing the evaluation of games-based CME are rare. It is expected that games-type activities that are more enjoyable may increase participant interest in more effective interactive formats. The ‘Strongest Link’ is a programme that incorporates the benefits of interactive, small-group learning in a large-group setting and decreases the need for multiple faculty members. The purpose of this study was to examine the difference between a didactic format and the game format of the Strongest Link by assessing knowledge acquisition and retention, and levels of satisfaction. What was done Family doctors were recruited from 4 Canadian cities. All participants were given the same information related to family medicine topics. The sites were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 educational formats: didactic or Strongest Link. The Strongest Link games-based programme consisted of 15 controversial true/false questions relating to a single topic. Participants in a large-group setting were divided into small groups and seated at round tables to discuss each question. Participants were given an opportunity to express the reason they chose their answer for each question. Answers to the questions were supported by current, peer-reviewed, published medical literature and discussed by a content expert. Evaluation of results and impact A total of 22 programmes were held in 4 different sites. Results demonstrate higher knowledge gains among participants using the Strongest Link format (P = 0.01). Knowledge gains were maintained at 1-month follow-up testing (P < 0.01). Participant satisfaction did not significantly differ between the formats (P = 0.72), but the type of format significantly affected the participants’ retention of content (P = 0.01). Qualitative comments from evaluation forms showed a preference for the games-based programme. From 9 participant interviews, 5 main themes emerged: the benefits of interactivity; the confirmation of knowledge among peers; the discovery of unperceived needs; that the Strongest Link was a better educational format, and that the traditional event was more comfortable for participants. The Strongest Link project provides evidence that learning in a game-type format can be more interactive despite being a large-group activity. Therefore, innovative learning formats should be developed in a supportive environment that is both enjoyable and competitive. Such initiatives will breathe new life into tried and tested CME programmes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.023 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".