Abstract:

Purpose
In an effort to avoid the predicted physician shortage in 2020, medical education in the United States and Canada is turning to technology. Yet many of the pedagogic innovations currently being made in education are being implemented without appropriate evaluation. The purpose of this pilot study is to appropriately evaluate the effectiveness of Articulate lecture capture technology as a learning tool in medical education.

Method
Student performance in an Articulate lecture capture-supported biochemistry course (2009) was compared to that in the previous academic year (2008). Both course iterations were identical in terms of faculty, course materials (with the exception of lecture capture in the 2009 course) and course evaluation. This biochemistry course is taught in the first semester of the first year of the Podiatric Medicine curriculum. To examine the impact of lecture capture on student performance a within–subjects design was implemented, a two way ANCOVA with repeated measures. IRB approval was received to use archival data.

Results & Discussion
There was no statistically significant difference between students in the two courses in terms of average age, ethnicity and gender. The use of lecture capture-supported pedagogy resulted in significantly higher student test scores, than achieved historically using traditional pedagogy. The overall course performance using this lecture capture-supported pedagogy was almost 6% higher than in the previous year, male and female students benefitted equally from the use of this technology. Non-native English language speakers benefitted more significantly from the lecture capture-supported pedagogy than native English language speakers since their performance improved by 10.0 points [1]. This advantage was especially noticeable on the final examination.

Conclusion
These observations support the expanded use of lecture capture technology in other courses in the medical school curriculum. It is well documented that under-represented minority (URM) students are at increased risk of burn out, emotional exhaustion and therefore attrition. This technology could be used as part of an academic enrichment plan to reduce this attrition of URM students, a significant proportion of which are non native English language speakers. The appropriate use of this technology may therefore go some way to addressing the shortage of URMs in the Physician workforce.

References:
[1] G.P. Shaw, and D. Molnar (2011) Non-native English language speakers benefit most from the use of lecture capture in medical school. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Education. 39 (6): 416 - 420

Keywords:

Lecture capture, biochemistry, education, underrepresented minority, native language.