Graphic summaries of expert knowledge for the medical curriculum: an experiment in second-year nephrology

This study was conducted to test the effects of Concept Graphics on learning in clinical nephrology. Second-year medical students were exposed to summaries of the major renal pathologies presented as text with, or without Concept Graphics for 30 minutes, followed by a quiz. Concept Graphics summarize diagnoses using icons that are metaphors of objects or processes. Of nine quiz questions, five were classified as correlation questions and four as memorization questions. The experimental group (n = 39) performed better than the controls (n = 33) in answering the correlation questions (p = 0.018). The experimental group mentioned more frequently than the controls two pathogonomic criteria of the nephritic syndrome (p = 0.02). Results of an opinion poll of the students, comparing sources used in their studies of nephrology were treated by correspondence analysis; the Concept Graphics ranked closest to the classification "very useful".