ArticleBMC medical education2022
Retrieval practice and spaced learning: preventing loss of knowledge in Dutch medical sciences students in an ecologically valid setting.
Article in BMC medical education, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of medical practitioners' retention and application of basic sciences to clinical practice.BMC medical education · 2024Pooled it
- Review
- Team FIRST: an innovative educational strategy for teaching teamwork competencies to medical students.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- First-year medical students' use of practice questions to understand science courses.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Perception of case-based collaborative learning in pathology through panel discussion using concept mapping: a quasi-experimental crossover study in phase II MBBS students.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Utilizing near-peer teaching to expand obesity medicine training within an internal medicine residency curriculum.Journal of clinical & translational endocrinology · 2025Article
- The Use of Retrieval Practice in the Health Professions: A State-of-the-Art Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Retention of physiology knowledge among medical students in basic science: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Decay in Physiologic Knowledge since Medical School among Critical Care Fellows (DIP Study).ATS scholar · 2025Article
- The first EANS vascular and skull base hands-on course in East Africa: Review from the global and humanitarian neurosurgical committee initiative.Brain & spine · 2025Article
- Focused anatomy workshops for clerkships and the USMLE Step 1 examination.Anatomical sciences education · 2025Article
- The effect of spaced E-Learning on knowledge of basic life support and satisfaction of nursing students: a quasi-experimental study.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Assessing the Difficulty and Long-Term Retention of Factual and Conceptual Knowledge Through Multiple-Choice Questions: A Longitudinal Study.Advances in medical education and practice · 2024Article
- Development and evaluation of a pre-clerkship spiral curriculum: data from three medical school classes.Medical education online · 2023Article
- Putting the Cart Before the Horse? Developing a Blended Anatomy Curriculum Supplemented by Cadaveric Anatomy.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2023Article
- Novel adult learning-based curriculum for pathology residents: components and critique at five years.Academic pathologyArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionKnowledge, once acquired, degrades over time. Exams that contain questions related to previously acquired knowledge ('retrieval practice questions') may promote retrieval practice and spaced learning, and subsequently prevent knowledge loss. To investigate this hypothesis, we compare the score of retrieval practice questions to regular questions in exams of a two-year (bio)medical study program.
methodsThe two-year "Mechanisms of Health and Disease"-program for biomedical sciences and medical students in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) contains 14 spaced exams of 80 questions each. The percentages of correct-, false-, and non-answers were compared between regular questions and retrieval practice questions. Using Pearson correlations between question scores and exam scores (RiT-values), the impact of retrieval practice questions on the internal consistency of exams was determined. Mixed model analyses determined changes in outcomes across time.
resultsAnalysis of 2006 regular questions and 1728 retrieval practice questions revealed a significantly higher percentage of correct and false answers, and a significantly lower percentage of non-answers, in retrieval practice questions versus regular questions (all P < 0.05). Scores did not change across time. RiT-values were slightly lower in retrieval practice questions, with a small inverse trend across time.
conclusionOur data indicate preservation of knowledge, possibly related to retrieval practice and/or spaced learning. Although the RiT-values of retrieval practice questions were slightly lower than those of regular questions, the discriminative capacity was well within acceptable range. These data highlight the potency of retrieval practice questions to prevent knowledge decrement, without altering exam quality.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.