Skip to main content
Log in

Teaching Students to Say “I Don’t Know”: Potential Methods and Implications

  • Feature: Perspective
  • Published:
Academic Psychiatry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

References

  1. Hojat M, Vergare MJ, Maxwell K, Brainard G, Herrine SK, Isenberg GA, et al. The devil is in the third year: a longitudinal study of erosion of empathy in medical school. Acad Med. 2009;84:1182–91.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Harden RM, Brown RA, Biran LA, Ross WP, Wakeford RE. Multiple choice questions: to guess or not to guess. Med Educ. 1976;10:27–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Theobald J, Gaglani S, Haynes R. The association between confidence and accuracy among users of a mobile web platform for medical education. Ann Intern Med. 2015;162:395–6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Muijtjen AMM, van Mameren H, Hoogenboom RFI, Evers JLH, van der Vleuten CPM. The effect of a ‘don’t know’ option on test scores: number-right and formula scoring compared. Med Educ. 1999;33:267–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bree K, Hao J, Stolfi A, Borges N, Fernandes A. Implementing an “I Don’t Know” option in undergraduate medical education. Ann Behav Sci Med Educ. 2015;5–6.

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors of this study would like to acknowledge Samantha Holcombe for her assistance in data collection, Adrienne Stolfi for data analysis, and Dr. Ryan Mast for his assistance in implementation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin Bree.

Ethics declarations

This research was exempt from Institutional Review Board approval.

Disclosures

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

No funding was required for this study.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bree, K., Roman, B. Teaching Students to Say “I Don’t Know”: Potential Methods and Implications. Acad Psychiatry 41, 561–563 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-017-0685-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-017-0685-5

Keywords

Navigation