ArticleNaunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology2026
Institute-created electronic flashcards, associated development effort, and exam performance in pharmacology education in human medicine.
Article in Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology, 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
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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.
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Electronic flashcards are popular among medical students, although their real-world effectiveness, and staff resources required to develop tailored decks, is not well understood. The Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmacology of Natural Products at the Ulm University Medical Center, Germany, created 1007 flashcards on 228 drugs aligned to the local and national curriculum using the Anki flashcard software. The time needed for card development was documented. Medical students participated in an observational study over four semesters and were encouraged to use the cards alongside established study materials for exam preparation in clinical pharmacology. Exams concluded either a lecture-based course focusing on declarative knowledge, or concluded a seminar-based course focusing on case-based application. A survey assessed usage patterns and helpfulness of flashcards and other study materials, demographics, and self-rated general academic performance. Pseudonymous codes linked survey responses to individual exam scores. Flashcard use was reported by 38.4% of participants overall, with higher use when preparing for lecture-based exams than for seminar-based exams. In total, 83.3% of users considered the cards helpful. Participants with lower self-rated general academic performance were more likely to use flashcards. Flashcard users scored lower in the exam than non-users, but this association was no longer significant after adjusting for self-rated general academic performance. Flashcard development took on average 7 min per card. These findings suggest that academically weaker students, and students preparing for exams testing declarative knowledge, may prefer flashcards. Given the substantial staff time required, and the lacking benefit of our flashcard-decks, the decision to tailor curriculum-aligned flashcards should be made cautiously.
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Registered trials
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.