ArticleJMIR medical education2017
Comparison of the Impact of Wikipedia, UpToDate, and a Digital Textbook on Short-Term Knowledge Acquisition Among Medical Students: Randomized Controlled Trial of Three Web-Based Resources.
Article in JMIR medical education, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Comparing the Use of DynaMed and UpToDate by Physician Trainees in Clinical Decision-Making: A Randomized Crossover Trial.Applied clinical informatics · 2022Trial
- Physiotherapists' Use of Web-Based Information Resources to Fulfill Their Information Needs During a Theoretical Examination: Randomized Crossover Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Trial
- Adoption of an Electronic Decision Support Tool for Capacity Building of Community Health Workers: Mixed Methods Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Exploring Students' Use of Medical Education Resources for the USMLE Step 2 CK Exam Preparation.Medical science educator · 2025Article
- Not Just Mechanical Birthing Bodies: Birthing Consciousness and Birth Reflexes.The Journal of perinatal education · 2023Article
- Public Awareness of the Fencing Response as an Indicator of Traumatic Brain Injury: Quantitative Study of Twitter and Wikipedia Data.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Accuracy and Utility of Internet Image Search as a Learning Tool for Retinal Pathology.Journal of academic ophthalmology (2017) · 2023Article
- Social Media and Health Care, Part I: Literature Review of Social Media Use by Health Care Providers.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Review
- Use of online resources by undergraduate medical students at College of Medicine, Majmaah University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.PloS one · 2021Article
- Moving towards online rheumatology education in the era of COVID-19.Clinical rheumatology · 2020Review
- The COVID-19 pandemic, commodity trading, and the required changes to ensure a promising future for the anesthesiology specialty: A call to action.Journal of clinical anesthesia · 2020Article
- Wikipedia in Vascular Surgery Medical Education: Comparative Study.JMIR medical education · 2020Article
- Article
- Situating Wikipedia as a health information resource in various contexts: A scoping review.PloS one · 2020Article
- Is Medical Education Ready for Universal Open Access to Research?Journal of graduate medical education · 2019Article
- The Most Influential Medical Journals According to Wikipedia: Quantitative Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- Pharmacy students can improve access to quality medicines information by editing Wikipedia articles.BMC medical education · 2018Article
- Wikipedia: A Medical Student Educational Project to Edit Wikipedia in Preparation for Practicing Evidence-Based Pain Medicine.Journal of medical education and curricular developmentArticle
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWeb-based resources are commonly used by medical students to supplement curricular material. Three commonly used resources are UpToDate (Wolters Kluwer Inc), digital textbooks, and Wikipedia; there are concerns, however, regarding Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy.
objectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of Wikipedia use on medical students' short-term knowledge acquisition compared with UpToDate and a digital textbook.
methodsThis was a prospective, nonblinded, three-arm randomized trial. The study was conducted from April 2014 to December 2016. Preclerkship medical students were recruited from four Canadian medical schools. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants through word of mouth, social media, and email. Participants must have been enrolled in their first or second year of medical school at a Canadian medical school. After recruitment, participants were randomized to one of the three Web-based resources: Wikipedia, UpToDate, or a digital textbook. During testing, participants first completed a multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) of 25 questions emulating a Canadian medical licensing examination. During the MCQ, participants took notes on topics to research. Then, participants researched topics and took written notes using their assigned resource. They completed the same MCQ again while referencing their notes. Participants also rated the importance and availability of five factors pertinent to Web-based resources. The primary outcome measure was knowledge acquisition as measured by posttest scores. The secondary outcome measures were participants' perceptions of importance and availability of each resource factor.
resultsA total of 116 medical students were recruited. Analysis of variance of the MCQ scores demonstrated a significant interaction between time and group effects (P<.001, η
conclusionsMedical students who used Wikipedia had superior short-term knowledge acquisition compared with those who used a digital textbook. Additionally, the Wikipedia group trended toward better posttest performance compared with the UpToDate group, though this difference was not significant. There were no significant differences between the UpToDate group and the digital textbook group. This study challenges the view that Wikipedia should be discouraged among medical students, instead suggesting a potential role in medical education.
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