Learning, retention and recall of clinical information

A representative group of 33 medical students who were entering the junior year clerkships was tested for retention and recall of clinical information 3 months after taking an examination on the same subject. The students were not given an opportunity to review the subject. On 39 identical multiple choice test questions, the students' mean score declined 10 percentile points (P < 0.05) from that on the original examination. On 40 comparable but previously unseen questions, the mean score fell 19 percentile points from that attained 3 months earlier. On open-ended questions of clinical reasoning, a third component of the assessment, the students performed at a level similar to those on the two multiple choice tests, but with greater variability. These assessments give data on retention and recall that have not previously been reported in the literature. Correlations among individual test components were moderate (r = 0.52-0.63). There was inconsistency of individual students in scores on the component tests, and, thus, variability in performance by students was marked. Retention and recall were weakly predicted by results on an initial multiple choice examination. In addition, on a subsequent assessment of knowledge, results from different types of tests were inconsistent, suggesting that these tests evaluate different forms of competence.