ArticleMedical science educator2026
Comparing Apples to Apples: Validity Evidence for an Innovative Practical Trials Approach to Evaluating the Effectiveness of Medical Curricula.
Article in Medical science educator, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Evaluating curricular changes in medical education remains challenging due to their complexity. Traditional pre-post comparisons can lack sufficient validity evidence, which can result in flawed interpretations and decision-making. This study proposes an innovative approach using practical trials and non-inferiority designs to strengthen the validity of curricular evaluations. Methods: We conducted a non-inferiority study comparing medical students' exam performance between two large cohorts (n Results: Raw exam scores showed no significant difference between cohorts (Mean difference = 0.13%). However, after adjusting for exam difficulty, students in the new curriculum scored 4.97% lower, Discussion: This study demonstrates a novel approach to evaluating curricular changes. While we concluded that reduced anatomy time did not meaningfully decrease student performance, our analyses also reveal how various interpretations can arise based on the approach to comparison. We offer guidance on how practical trials can be combined with strategies to account for cohort differences to enhance the validity of curricular comparisons.
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Registered trials
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