Learning/feedback activities and high-quality teaching: perceptions of third-year medical students during an inpatient rotation.
OBJECTIVE
To identify specific learning activities (and teaching methods) that students associate with high-quality teaching in the inpatient setting.


METHODS
For ten months in 2003-04, 170 third-year medical students recorded data on learning/feedback activities and teaching quality via personal digital assistants during the inpatient portion of a required two-month medicine clerkship at four sites affiliated with the Medical College of Wisconsin. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the association between learning/feedback activities and students' perceptions of high-quality teaching.


RESULTS
A total of 2,671 teaching encounters were rated by 170 students during their required inpatient medicine rotations. Bedside teaching was reported in almost two-thirds of teaching/learning encounters. Feedback on case presentation and differential diagnosis were the inpatient feedback activities most often provided by faculty. The univariate analysis revealed that students' perceptions of high-quality teaching was associated with receiving mini-lectures, developing short presentations on relevant inpatient topics, bedside teaching, case-based conferences, learning electrocardiogram and chest X-ray interpretation, teaching with other team members present (p <. 001), and receiving feedback on history and physical examination, on case presentation, at the bedside, on differential diagnosis, and on daily progress notes. Results from the regression analysis revealed that giving mini-lectures on inpatient topics, teaching electrocardiogram and chest X-ray interpretation, providing feedback on case presentation, and at the bedside were predictors of overall high-quality teaching.


CONCLUSIONS
Aspects of feedback, giving mini-lectures, and learning test-interpretation skills were the learning and feedback activities associated with students' perceptions of high-quality teaching. In an increasingly time-pressured inpatient environment, clinical educators should understand which activities students value.
Torre
Dario M
DM
Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin/Clement J Zablocki VA Medical Center, Froedtert East Office Bldg, Suite E4200, 9200 Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226, USA. dtorre@mcw.edu
Simpson
Deborah
D
Sebastian
James L
JL
Elnicki
D Michael
DM
D002982:Clinical Clerkship; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D007858:Learning; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010465:Perception; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013337:Students, Medical; D013663:Teaching / Q000592:standards*