Bright on the right feels right: SQUARC compatibility is hedonically marked.

According to the Spatial Quantity Association of Response Codes (SQUARC), people hold a mental association between horizontal position and quantity (lower quantities left, higher quantities right). While a large body of research has explored this effect for response speed and judgment accuracy, the affective downstream consequences of the SQUARC remain unexplored. Aiming to address this gap, the present two experiments (pre-registered, total N = 521) investigated whether stimulus arrangements that are compatible with the SQUARC for luminance are affectively preferred to stimulus arrangements that are incompatible. SQUARC-compatible square arrangements (dark-left, bright-right) were preferred over SQUARC-incompatible square arrangements (dark-right, bright-left). The preference for SQUARC compatibility was not moderated by the horizontal orientation of the response scale. Our results confirm the direction of the spatial-luminance association and provide initial support that the cognitive processing of SQUARC compatibility is hedonically marked and appears sufficient to impact affective evaluations.

Learning the facts in medical school is not enough: which factors predict successful application of procedural knowledge in a laboratory setting?

BACKGROUND: Medical knowledge encompasses both conceptual (facts or "what" information) and procedural knowledge ("how" and "why" information). Conceptual knowledge is known to be an essential prerequisite for clinical problem solving. Primarily, medical students learn from textbooks and often struggle with the process of applying their conceptual knowledge to clinical problems. Recent studies address the question of how to foster the acquisition of procedural knowledge and its application in medical education. However, little is known about the factors which predict performance in procedural knowledge tasks. Which additional factors of the learner predict performance in procedural knowledge? METHODS: Domain specific conceptual knowledge (facts) in clinical nephrology was provided to 80 medical students (3rd to 5th year) using electronic flashcards in a laboratory setting. Learner characteristics were obtained by questionnaires. Procedural knowledge in clinical nephrology was assessed by key feature problems (KFP) and problem solving tasks (PST) reflecting strategic and conditional knowledge, respectively. RESULTS: Results in procedural knowledge tests (KFP and PST) correlated significantly with each other. In univariate analysis, performance in procedural knowledge (sum of KFP+PST) was significantly correlated with the results in (1) the conceptual knowledge test (CKT), (2) the intended future career as hospital based doctor, (3) the duration of clinical clerkships, and (4) the results in the written German National Medical Examination Part I on preclinical subjects (NME-I). After multiple regression analysis only clinical clerkship experience and NME-I performance remained independent influencing factors. CONCLUSIONS: Performance in procedural knowledge tests seems independent from the degree of domain specific conceptual knowledge above a certain level. Procedural knowledge may be fostered by clinical experience. More attention should be paid to the interplay of individual clinical clerkship experiences and structured teaching of procedural knowledge and its assessment in medical education curricula.

Using electronic flashcards to promote learning in medical students: retesting versus restudying.

CONTEXT: The superiority of retesting over restudying in terms of knowledge retention and skills acquisition has been proven in both laboratory and classroom settings, as well as in doctors' practice. However, it is still unclear how important retesting strategies are to the learning of relevant factual knowledge in undergraduate medical education. METHODS: Eighty students in Years 3-5 of medical school in Munich participated in a prospective, randomised, double-blinded, controlled study in which they were exposed to 30 electronic flashcards designed to help them memorise key factual knowledge in the domain of clinical nephrology. The flashcards were presented in four successive learning cycles, each consisting of a study period and a subsequent test period. Half of all participants were randomised to repetitive studying (restudy group) and half were randomised to repetitive testing (retest group) of successfully memorised flashcards. Knowledge retention was assessed after 1 week and 6 months. Additionally, personal data, self-reflection on the efficacy of the learning strategies and judgements of learning were obtained by questionnaires. RESULTS: Repetitive testing promoted better recall than repetitive studying after 1 week (p<0.001). However, after 6 months general recall was poor and no difference between the restudy and retest groups was observed. Time on task and number of trials, in addition to sex, age, performance and psycho-social background, did not vary between the groups. Self-predictions of student performance did not correlate with actual performance. CONCLUSIONS: In the context of using electronic flashcards, repetitive testing is a more potent learning strategy than repetitive studying for short-term but not long-term knowledge retention in clinical medical students. Although students use testing as a learning strategy, they seem to be unaware of its superiority in supporting short-term knowledge retention.