gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Podcasts are popular with medical students, but the impact of podcast use on learning outcome has not been studied in detail. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of podcast use and lecture attendance on short- and medium-term knowledge retention.

Methods: Students enrolled for a cardio-respiratory teaching module were asked to prepare for ten 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 and a retention test (see Figure 1 [Fig. 1]).

Results: Podcast use was associated with significantly better test performance in all items in the surprise and seven items in the retention test. Lecture attendance was associated with higher test performance in three and one item, respectively (see Figure 2 [Fig. 2]). In a linear regression analysis adjusted for age, gender and overall performance levels, both podcast use and lecture attendance were significant predictors of student performance. However, the variance explained by podcast use was greater than the variance explained by lecture attendance in the surprise (38.7% vs. 2.2%) and retention test (19.1% vs. 4.0%).

Discussion/conclusion: 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 [1], [2], [3].