ArticleBMC medical education2026
Evaluating a corpus-based intervention in medical English writing: a mixed-methods study.
Article in BMC medical education, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
backgroundRecent work in medical education has begun to explore how language teaching may contribute to the humanistic aims of health professions training. While technology-assisted language learning (TALL) offers one possible pedagogical space, and corpus-based approaches provide structured access to authentic language use, less attention has been given to how corpus-based TALL may support students' written representation of humanistic and professional values in clinical and ethical contexts.
methodsGrounded in experiential and constructivist views of learning, this quasi-experimental mixed‑methods study explored on a corpus-based intervention implemented in a technology-assisted language learning environment at a medical university in Southeast China. Sixty medical students were assigned to experimental and control groups. Quantitative analyses compared pre‑ and post‑test writing performances through rubric scores and frequency tracking of humanistic expression within and between groups. Qualitative content analysis of writings examined changes in the discursive realization of clinical, ethical, and humanistic concerns. Semi‑structured interviews with experimental group students explored students' reflections on how corpus-based learning influenced their written articulation of ethical responsibility, sensitivity to patients' perspectives, and discursive engagement with clinical and ethical issues.
resultsAfter controlling for pre-test scores, the experimental group achieved significantly higher post-test writing scores than the control group (F(1,57) = 16.72, p < 0.001, η
conclusionsFindings provide empirical support for embedding corpus consultation within technology-enhanced, task-oriented medical English instruction. The intervention appears to have been most effective in strengthening linguistic precision, professional register, and the explicit framing of ethical issues in writing. It therefore offers a modest methodological contribution by showing how the written representation of humanistic values can be examined with identifiable discursive patterns. It also contributes to ongoing discussions on integrating technological and linguistic dimensions within bio‑psycho‑social approaches to medical education.
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