Abstract
Communication of feedback during teaching of practical procedures is a fine balance of structure and timing. We investigate if continuous in-task (IT) or end-task feedback (ET) is more effective in teaching spinal anaesthesia to medical students. End-task feedback was hypothesized to improve both short-term and long-term procedural learning retention as experiential learning promotes active learning after encountering errors during practice. Upon exposure to a 5-min instructional video, students randomized to IT or ET feedbacks were trained using a spinal simulator mannequin. A blinded expert tested the students using a spinal anaesthesia checklist in the short term (immediate) and long-term (average 4 months). Sixty-five students completed the training and testing. There were no differences in demographics of age or gender within IT or ET distributions. Both short-term and long-term learning retention of spinal anaesthesia ET feedback proved to be better (P < 0.01) than IT feedback. The time taken for ET students was shorter at long-term testing. End-task feedback improves both short-term and long-term procedural learning retention.
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Lean, L.L., Hong, R.Y.S. & Ti, L.K. End-task versus in-task feedback to increase procedural learning retention during spinal anaesthesia training of novices. Adv in Health Sci Educ 22, 713–721 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-016-9703-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-016-9703-8