The effectiveness of integration of virtual patients in a collaborative learning activity

Abstract

Background: Virtual patients (VPs) have been recently integrated within different learning activities.

Aim: To compare between the effect of using VPs in a collaborative learning activity and using VPs in an independent learning activity on students’ knowledge acquisition, retention and transfer.

Methods: For two different topics, respectively 82 and 76 dental students participated in teaching, learning and assessment sessions with VPs. Students from a female campus and from a male campus have been randomly assigned to condition (collaborative and independent), yielding four experimental groups. Each group received a lecture followed by a learning session using two VPs per topic. Students were administrated immediate and delayed written tests as well as transfer tests using two VPs to assess their knowledge in diagnosis and treatment.

Results: For the treatment items of the immediate and delayed written tests, females outperformed males in the collaborative VP group but not in the independent VP group.

Conclusion: On the female campus, the use of VPs in a collaborative learning activity is more effective than its use as an independent learning activity in enhancing students’ knowledge acquisition and retention. However, the collaborative use of VPs by itself is not enough to produce consistent results across different groups of students and attention should be given to all the factors that would affect students’ interaction.

Ethical approval

The study was reviewed and approved by the University Ethical Committee. IRB number: IRB-2015-02-099.

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank Dr. Mohamed AL-Eraky from the Medical Education Department, and all the members of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Division who revised the lectures content and structure and established the content validity of the different tests. The Saudi Supplement on Medical Education is sponsored and supported by Al Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hesham F. Marei

Hesham F. Marei, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Consultant of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Marei is currently a PhD fellow at Maastricht University, Netherlands.

Jeroen Donkers

Jeroen Donkers, PhD, is an Assistant Professor, at the Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Netherlands.

Jeroen J. G. Van Merrienboer

Jeroen J. G. Van Merrienboer, PhD, is a Professor of Learning and Instruction at the Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University. He is the Program Director of Research in Education, School of Health Professions Education and Scientific Director of the Interuniversity Center for Educational Research.