The effectiveness of a leadup activity on performance in an operative preclinic laboratory course

Preclinical technique curricula seldom provide training in those prerequisite skills that may facilitate performance in a large class of procedures. Instead, students typically progress from simple to increasingly difficult preparations and it is assumed that positive transfer occurs between them. Another strategy that may provide greater benefits is the leadup activity, which closely simulates the criterion tasks, but eliminates one or more complexities thought to interfere with prerequisite skill acquisition. This investigation evaluated the effectiveness of such a training program on performance in all projects of a freshman operative laboratory course. Twenty-six student volunteers participated in an eight-hour program that was largely self-instructional. Their performance was compared to that of a randomly selected control group with replacement at each observation. Raters were calibrated and blind to group affiliation of completed preparations. Analyses of covariance with PAT as the covariate indicated that the experimental group statistically significantly outperformed the control group on all but one preparation. It is concluded that the implementation of leadup activities at least for a freshman operative technique laboratory may be warranted.