
Episode 19 - Bite-Size Research on Benefits of Retrieval with Medical Residents
05/16/18 • 5 min
This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.
Show Notes:
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Megan talks research findings showing that medical residents benefit from retrieval practice after didactic conferences.
In the last episode, Alyssa Smith, a third-year medical student, talked about the effective study strategies that she has been using throughout medical school. This episode continues with the medical education theme, discussing a paper by Doug Larsen, Andrew Butler, and Henry "Roddy" Roediger (1). This paper is interesting because it looks at the importance of retrieval practice for medical residents. Much of the research we discuss was done with college students or younger children. In this case, the research was conducted with individuals who are much further along in their professional career.
The Experiment:
Medical residents across all three years of the Pediatric Residency Program and all four years of the Emergency Medicine Program participated in a didactic conference. The conference was an hour-long interactive teaching session that was pretty typical of the types of sessions medical residents would attend to learn about broad topics. This particular conference covered the treatment of status epilepticus, and the diagnosis and treatment of myasthenia gravis. The residents may run into patients with either of these in emergency medicine.
The experiment was within-subjects, meaning all of the residents participated in both of the repeated retrieval and repeated study learning conditions. In the repeated retrieval condition, residents took practice tests with feedback after the conference. They repeated this two more times at 2-week intervals. In the repeated study condition, residents reviewed a study guide after the conference. They repeated this two more times at 2-week intervals.
They were randomly assigned to one of two groups:
- Group 1: practiced repeated retrieval with status epilepticus, reviewed the study guide for myasthenia gravis
- Group 2: repeatedly reviewed the study guide for status epilepticus, practiced retrieval with myasthenia gravis
The residents all took one big test over both topics 6 months after initial learning at the didactic conference.
The Results:
Residents who practiced retrieval remembered a lot more than those who reviewed the study guide! So, repeated retrieval spaced out over time led to greater levels of retention compared to repeated studying spaced out over time.
Repeated retrieval is beneficial for residents, individuals who are much further along in their professions than some of the typical populations we study. The authors point out that residents are probably not repeatedly studying the information from these didactic conferences spaced out over time. So, the repeated study condition may actually be better than what the typical resident does. Yet, repeated retrieval leads to even better retention compared to repeated studying over time!
Tune in next month to learn about the importance of sleep and learning, and self care!
Subscribe to our Podcast!
Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss
References:
(1) Larsen, D. P., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Repeated testing improves long-term retention relative to repeated study: a randomized controlled trial. Medical Education, 43, 1174-1181.
This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.
Show Notes:
This is a bite-size research episode, where we briefly describe research findings on a specific topic. This week, Megan talks research findings showing that medical residents benefit from retrieval practice after didactic conferences.
In the last episode, Alyssa Smith, a third-year medical student, talked about the effective study strategies that she has been using throughout medical school. This episode continues with the medical education theme, discussing a paper by Doug Larsen, Andrew Butler, and Henry "Roddy" Roediger (1). This paper is interesting because it looks at the importance of retrieval practice for medical residents. Much of the research we discuss was done with college students or younger children. In this case, the research was conducted with individuals who are much further along in their professional career.
The Experiment:
Medical residents across all three years of the Pediatric Residency Program and all four years of the Emergency Medicine Program participated in a didactic conference. The conference was an hour-long interactive teaching session that was pretty typical of the types of sessions medical residents would attend to learn about broad topics. This particular conference covered the treatment of status epilepticus, and the diagnosis and treatment of myasthenia gravis. The residents may run into patients with either of these in emergency medicine.
The experiment was within-subjects, meaning all of the residents participated in both of the repeated retrieval and repeated study learning conditions. In the repeated retrieval condition, residents took practice tests with feedback after the conference. They repeated this two more times at 2-week intervals. In the repeated study condition, residents reviewed a study guide after the conference. They repeated this two more times at 2-week intervals.
They were randomly assigned to one of two groups:
- Group 1: practiced repeated retrieval with status epilepticus, reviewed the study guide for myasthenia gravis
- Group 2: repeatedly reviewed the study guide for status epilepticus, practiced retrieval with myasthenia gravis
The residents all took one big test over both topics 6 months after initial learning at the didactic conference.
The Results:
Residents who practiced retrieval remembered a lot more than those who reviewed the study guide! So, repeated retrieval spaced out over time led to greater levels of retention compared to repeated studying spaced out over time.
Repeated retrieval is beneficial for residents, individuals who are much further along in their professions than some of the typical populations we study. The authors point out that residents are probably not repeatedly studying the information from these didactic conferences spaced out over time. So, the repeated study condition may actually be better than what the typical resident does. Yet, repeated retrieval leads to even better retention compared to repeated studying over time!
Tune in next month to learn about the importance of sleep and learning, and self care!
Subscribe to our Podcast!
Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss
References:
(1) Larsen, D. P., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Repeated testing improves long-term retention relative to repeated study: a randomized controlled trial. Medical Education, 43, 1174-1181.
Previous Episode

Episode 18 - Effective Studying in Medical School with Alyssa Smith
This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.
Show Notes:
Alyssa Smith with the Rosalind Franklin Statue on the Rosalind Franklin campus
In this episode, Megan interviews her little sister, Alyssa Smith, who is finishing up her 3rd year in Medical School at Chicago Medical School.
Alyssa uses many of the six strategies for effective learning that we talk about on the podcast. As the sister of a Cognitive Psychologist who specializes in learning, she has of course heard of these strategies before. But in addition, during orientation to Medical School she and her class were introduced to many of these strategies and the research behind them. The students were taught explicitly how to use the strategies, and student tutors reinforce the strategies with their younger peers.
Alyssa and her class were told during this orientation that many of the strategies they have used to get them this far, for example cramming, might not cut it in medical school. In medical school, students are required to learn an immense amount of information and retain that information over time. To do this, they will need to use the most effective learning strategies.
Alyssa explains that when she was an undergraduate, she did do a lot of cramming and she was able to do well in her classes. However, we know cramming does not tend to lead to long-term learning, and Alyssa says she has lost a lot of what she learned as an undergrad, even from class in which she did very well. This isn't uncommon; many of her peers say the same thing. She knows that as a physician she will need to remember what she is learning in medical school, and is now dedicated to ensuring that she is learning for the long-term.
So how does Alyssa use effective strategies now? She explained with some very specific examples.
How she has used spacing and interleaving
Alyssa Smith at her White Coat Ceremony
At the beginning of each week, Alyssa created a study schedule and made sure to schedule time for at least 2 or 3 different courses each day. One thing that really helped her to stick to her schedule was to plan a little bit of flexible time each week. Alyssa planned Monday through Friday, but left the weekends for studying whatever she was struggling with the most. This helped her stick to her schedule. If she was struggling with something, in the past she might have been tempted to ignore her other courses and focus on the difficult topics. But, with her flexible schedule, she would say to herself "I have to do well on every course. I can't neglect the others, so I'm going to stick to my schedule." Then on the weekends she would go back to the things she felt she needed to revist, and often found she actually knew it better than she thought she did!
How she has used retrieval
To help with classes like Anatomy and Pharmacology, Alyssa used flashcard programs, like Anki. One great thing about Anki is that it incorporates spacing. You can input your confidence on different terms, and based on your confidence it will show up sooner (like 10 minutes) or later (like 2 days). But importantly, they always come back to make sure you're engaging in repeated retrieval. They can also utilize interleaving if you make different decks.
How she has used dual coding, combined with other strategies
Alyssa's diagrams for dual coding retrieval practice!
Alyssa found dual coding to be effective and fun. (She says she knows it's nerdy, but it's true!!!) Alyssa talks about online programs that utilize dual coding, like SketchyMedical. They show videos that tell a little story and as you go along include symbols that are associated with specific concepts. These programs are not free, but Alyssa said she personally found them useful.
She also created her own dual coding retrieval practice by drawing diagrams of things she needed to learn on her closet door mirror, so that she could practice retrieving the information using the diagrams as cues whenever she was getting ready! (Introducing spacing, too.)
Has learning styles come up as a med student?
Unfortunately, this is something she has heard from both students and professors. But, during her initial orientation the class was told that the learning styles theory is not true. Instead, the class was told to integrate lots of different methods!
What would you recommend to incoming medical students?
Alyssa recommends learning how to use evidence-based study strategies right away. Start out by creating a schedule where you're studying your classes each day if you can, and at least 2-3 days per week. Then, stick to the schedule so you're not cramming!
What wou...
Next Episode

Episode 20 - Sleep, Learning, and Self Care
This episode was funded by The Wellcome Trust.
Show Notes:
In this episode, we talk about the importance of sleep for learning. We all know we are supposed to get enough sleep. But why exactly do we need to sleep? Sleep deprivation can lead to weight gain, increases in colds, heart disease, diabetes, and also deficits in cognitive abilities such as attention, decision making, and learning. And both at the high-school and college level, students are not getting the recommend amount of sleep.
We first talk about a study (1) in which students learned and were tested on French-Swahili word pairs, until they were able to remember all the pairs in both directions (i.e., French to Swahili and Swahili to French). Later, students came back and were tested at different time points depending on condition. The sleep group learned at 9pm and took the test at 9am. The no sleep group learned at 9am and took the test at 9pm. Students in the sleep group performed better, despite having the same time delay between learning and testing (12 hours). The theory is that sleeping after learning helps consolidate memories. In addition, re-learning after sleeping can lead to even bigger gains. So, if you’re going to do spaced practice, it’s a good idea to try to sleep in between practice sessions.
(Note: in the podcast we misspoke and mentioned "passages" when were talking about word pairs. Also, we didn't cover all the details of each condition, because doing so would have resulted in cognitive overload. Read this blog post for more information on this study.)
We also describe another study with a similar design but more classroom-relevant materials (2). Students watched an economics lecture either in the morning or the evening, and then took a test after the same length of time. In this study, sleep lead to an improvement not only in retrieval of facts, but also (and especially) in application questions. You can read all about this study in this blog post.
We end the podcast with suggestions for how to get the recommended amount of sleep. See this blog post for those tips.
Here are two additional resources on sleep and self-care:
Sleep resources from Campus Mindworks
http://www.campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/sleep.asp
Taking Care of Yourself from Campus Mindworks
http://www.campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/default.asp
Subscribe to our Podcast!
Go to our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
RSS feed: http://www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/?format=rss
References:
(1) Mazza, S., Gerbier, E., Gustin, M., Kasikci, Z., Koenig, O., Toppino, T.C., & Magnin, M. (2016). Relearn faster and retain longer: Along with practice, sleep makes perfect. Psychological Science, 27, 1321-1330.
(2) Scullin, M., McDaniel, M., Howard, D., & Kudelka, C. (2011, June). Sleep and testing promote conceptual learning of classroom materials. Presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC, Minneapolis, MN.
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