title: Moving Knowledge Acquisition From the Lecture Hall to the Student Home: A Prospective Intervention Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Podcasts are popular with medical students, but the impact of podcast use on learning outcomes in undergraduate medical education has not been studied in detail.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Our aim was to assess the impact of podcasts accompanied by quiz questions and lecture attendance on short- and medium-term knowledge retention.
  
  
  METHODS
  Students enrolled for a cardio-respiratory teaching module were asked to prepare for 10 specific lectures by watching podcasts and submitting answers to related quiz questions before attending live lectures. Performance on the same questions was assessed in a surprise test and a retention test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Watching podcasts and submitting answers to quiz questions (versus no podcast/quiz use) was associated with significantly better test performance in all items in the surprise test and 7 items in the retention test. Lecture attendance (versus no attendance) was associated with higher test performance in 3 items and 1 item, respectively. In a linear regression analysis adjusted for age, gender, and overall performance levels, both podcast/quiz use and lecture attendance were significant predictors of student performance. However, the variance explained by podcast/quiz use was greater than the variance explained by lecture attendance in the surprise test (38.7% vs. 2.2%) and retention test (19.1% vs. 4.0%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  When used in conjunction with quiz questions, podcasts have the potential to foster knowledge acquisition and retention over and above the effect of live lectures.
authors.affiliation: University Medical Centre Göttingen, Clinic for Cardiology and Pneumology, Georg-August University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany. raupach@med.uni-goettingen.de.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2555-8097
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Raupach
authors.forename: Clemens
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1575-0758
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grefe
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2797-5428
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8081-9694
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Nikolai
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9712-9780
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schuelper
authors.forename: Sven
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1268-5022
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Anders
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D057211:Webcasts as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: knowledge; lecture; medical education; podcast; retention