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Record W4406142851 · doi:10.36834/cmej.77394

Evaluating the outcomes of problem-based learning in postgraduate medical education: a systematic review and meta-analysis

2025· review· en· W4406142851 on OpenAlex

Why this work is in the frame

A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.

affAt least one author lists a Canadian institution in the pinned OpenAlex snapshot.
venuePublished in a venue whose home country is Canada.

Bibliographic record

VenueCanadian Medical Education Journal · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldSocial Sciences
TopicProblem and Project Based Learning
Canadian institutionsLondon Health Sciences CentreQueen's UniversityWestern University
Fundersnot available
KeywordsPsycINFOCINAHLMEDLINEMeta-analysisProblem-based learningMedical educationMedicineWeb of sciencePsychologyFamily medicineNursingInternal medicinePsychological intervention

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Background: Educators have recently been compelled to incorporate more active instructional formats into medical education, such as problem-based learning (PBL). In view of the mixed outcome data on the use of PBL in postgraduate medical education (PGME), there is a need to synthesize the data to inform the application of PBL in PGME contexts. Objective: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize learning outcomes of PBL in PGME contexts. Methods: The authors systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase, APA PsycINFO, AMED, CINAHL, Web of Science, ERIC, and Cochrane databases from January 1, 1950, to July 1, 2022 for original studies that reported Kirkpatrick outcomes of PBL in PGME contexts. Outcomes data were extracted. Quantitative data relating to learning outcomes were meta-analyzed using a random-effects model to generate weighted mean differences. Results: Of 4310 abstracts screened, the authors included 21 studies encompassing anesthesia, family medicine, internal medicine, occupational medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, public health and surgical residency programs. The studies reported reaction (n = 12), learning (n = 15), behavioural (n = 6) and/or results outcomes (n = 4). Meta-analysis of the three eligible articles demonstrated no significant difference after PBL in pre- and post-test results (pooled mean difference=0.13%, 95% CI, -6.74–7.00). There were observed improvements in satisfaction levels and self-reported behavioural outcomes following PBL. Conclusions: Although similar learning outcomes were observed using PBL and the usual teaching in PGME, PBL was associated with benefits in trainee satisfaction and behavioural changes that contribute to learning and performance. PGME programs should consider incorporating PBL into curricula.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.024
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.145
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch, Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Systematic review · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.438
Threshold uncertainty score0.990

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0240.145
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0040.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.003
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0010.000
Research integrity0.0000.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0110.000

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.

Opus teacher head0.107
GPT teacher head0.481
Teacher spread0.374 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it