Digital learning of clinical skills and its impact on medical students' academic performance: a systematic review

Richard G McGee; Stuart Wark; Felista Mwangi; Aaron Drovandi; Faith Alele; Bunmi S Malau-Aduli; ACHIEVE Collaboration

doi:10.1186/s12909-024-06471-2

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Digital learning of clinical skills and its impact on medical students' academic performance: a systematic review

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Digital learning of clinical skills and its impact on medical students' academic performance: a systematic review

Richard G McGee, Stuart Wark, Felista Mwangi, Aaron Drovandi, Faith Alele, Bunmi S Malau-Aduli and ACHIEVE Collaboration

BMC Medical Education, Vol.24(1), pp.1-23

2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-06471-2

PMCID: PMC11653901

PMID: 39696150

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Abstract

clinical skills

medical education

pedagogy

digital learning

Background The constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the rapid development and implementation of digital methods for teaching clinical skills in medical education. This systematic review presents both the benefits, challenges, and effectiveness of this transition. Methods A systematic search of six electronic databases (SCOPUS, Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ERIC & Informit) was conducted on 1st October 2023 and updated on 1st April 2024 to identify peer- reviewed articles, from 2019 onwards, which used any type of digital tool (online or otherwise) to teach clinical skills to medical trainees (undergraduate or postgraduate) and were published in English language. The primary outcome synthesised was the reported effectiveness of these digital tools in the development of clinical skills. Risk of bias of included studies was assessed using the Quality Assessment With Diverse Studies (QuADS) tool. Results Twenty-seven studies involving 3,895 participants were eligible for inclusion in this review. The QuADS quality assessment scores ranged from 22 to 35, indicating medium quality and thirteen of the studies were randomized trials. Overall, digital teaching of clinical skills demonstrated improved or comparable outcomes to in-person teaching. There was a beneficial effect of digital learning tools on assessment outcomes, with meta-analysis showing a mean difference increase of 1.93 (95% CI 1.22 to 2.64), albeit with a high amount of statistical heterogeneity I2 97%, P < 0.001. Digital clinical skills teaching also resulted in improved student satisfaction scores in many situations and was also shown in one study to be cost effective. Conclusion Teaching of clinical skills using digital tools is an important alternative to the traditional format of face-to-face delivery, which is resource intensive and difficult to implement during a pandemic. This review demonstrates their potential efficacy in improving education outcomes, student satisfaction and potentially reducing costs. However, the integration of traditional and innovative digital teaching methods appeared to provide the most comprehensive learning experience. Future research could focus on longitudinal studies to assess the long-term impact and efficacy of different digital and blended learning modalities on the acquisition of clinical skills and professional competencies.

Details

Title: Digital learning of clinical skills and its impact on medical students' academic performance: a systematic review
Authors: Richard G McGee (Corresponding Author) - University of Newcastle Australia
Stuart Wark - University of New England
Felista Mwangi - University of Newcastle Australia
Aaron Drovandi - University of Manchester
Faith Alele - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Health - Public Health
Bunmi S Malau-Aduli - University of Newcastle Australia
ACHIEVE Collaboration (Research Group)
Publication details: BMC Medical Education, Vol.24(1), pp.1-23
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd.
Date published: 2024
DOI: 10.1186/s12909-024-06471-2
ISSN: 1472-6920
PMID: 39696150; PMC11653901
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Data Availability: Data is provided within the manuscript or supplementary information files.
Organisation Unit: School of Health - Public Health
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991090198602621
Output Type: Journal article

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