title: Teaching students to question.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the study was to teach medical students the strategies of critical questioning to determine the effect on students' critical thinking skills, confidence in their ability to ask questions, and interaction between student and instructor.
  
  
  METHODS
  Workshops were developed to teach medical students how to systematically ask critical questions. Sixty-two consenting students in their third-year obstetrics and gynecology clerkship were divided according to alternate rotations to either attend the workshops (n = 28) or not (n = 41).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Medical students who attended the workshops scored higher on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test mean total score (study group 25.1 [+/- 0.7 SEM] vs control group 22.9 [+/- 0.6 SEM], P = .028), subscales of inference (12.6 [+/- 0.3 SEM] vs 11.2 [+/- 0.3 SEM], P = .003), and of deductive reasoning (12.7 [+/- 0.4 SEM] vs 10.9 [+/- 0.3 SEM], P = .001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Teaching students to ask critical questions improves critical thinking as measured by the California Critical Thinking Skills Test.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Ill, USA. GLOY1@uic.edu
authors.forename: Gary L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Loy
authors.forename: Mark H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Gelula
authors.forename: Louis A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Vontver
mesh_terms: D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D015331:Cohort Studies; D006176:Gynecology / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007087:Illinois; D007858:Learning; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000193:education*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013663:Teaching