Automatic analysis of summary statements in virtual patients - a pilot study evaluating a machine learning approach

Differences in clinical reasoning between female and male medical students

Background

In undergraduate medical education virtual patients (VPs) are a suitable method to teach clinical reasoning and support the visualization of this thinking process in a safe environment. The aim of our study was to investigate differences in the clinical reasoning process and diagnostic accuracy of female and male medical students.

Methods

During the summer term 2020, we provided access to 15 VPs for undergraduate students enrolled in a medical school in Bavaria, Germany. All interactions of the 179 learners within the VP system CASUS were recorded, exported, and analyzed.

Results

We found significant differences in the clinical reasoning of female and male learners. Female students documented more findings, differential diagnoses, tests, and treatment options and more often created a summary statement about the VP. Their overall performance was higher than those of their male peers, but we did not see any significant differences in diagnostic accuracy.

Conclusions

The significant differences between male and female medical students should be considered when planning teaching and research activities. A future study should investigate whether these differences can also be found in physicians.

The Mediating Role of Critical Thinking Abilities in the Relationship Between English as a Foreign Language Learners' Writing Performance and Their Language Learning Strategies

Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in the mediating role of critical thinking abilities (CTA) in the relationship between language learning strategies and the intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' writing performance. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was run to homogenize the participants, and 100 intermediate learners out of 235 were selected. Then, two valid questionnaires of Ricketts' Critical Thinking Disposition and Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning were administered. Having administered the questionnaires, the researchers asked the participants to sit for a writing test. The data collected from the questionnaires and as well as the scores of their writing performances were analyzed through SPSS (25.00). The results showed a significant relationship between (a) learning strategies and learners' writing performances, (b) the sub-sets of learning strategies and learners' writing performances, and (c) CTA and learners' learning strategies. However, CTA did not play a mediating role in the relationship between intermediate EFL learners' learning strategies and writing performance. Based on the results of the study, one might also conclude that strategies seemed to play a more important role in the performance of learners especially their writing performances. Therefore, this study had useful contributions for students, teachers, and curriculum designers. Findings of this research could assist teachers to be aware of learners' strategies in learning writing and help their students to be responsive to using learning strategies in their learning process and create a satisfactory learning context for using learning strategies. Therefore, learners were able to become independent and feel responsibility for their own learning. Secondly, curriculum developers could take advantage of the findings to include learning strategies training into the curriculum. As a result, students were able to use strategies in their learning process more easily and finally, the results might pave the way for improving the research findings.