Virtual learning allows for adaptation of study strategies in a cohort of U.S. medical students

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most U.S. medical schools acutely transitioned from regimented in-person learning to highly flexible virtual asynchronous learning. This transition at our medical school provided a unique opportunity to evaluate if and how students adapted their academic and personal lives in response.

Medical students in a single class that made this transition were retrospectively provided with 24-hour diaries for three periods - one shortly before the transition, a second early in the transition, and third several months into the transition - and asked to select the academic or personal activities done in each hour. The percentage of medical students performing each activity each hour was analyzed, as was the time spent on each activity per day, and per morning, afternoon, per evening within the day.

Overall study time did not change in either virtual period but shifted significantly to the morning (6 AM to 12 PM). Time spent studying in groups fell significantly during both virtual periods, concordant with a significant increase in alone study time in the early virtual period. Early in the transition to virtual learning, students replaced in-person didactics with online faculty lectures; several months later in virtual learning, they had replaced online faculty lectures with commercial products. There was no significant change in time spent on specific personal activities.

Consistent with extensive constraints imposed by the heavy cognitive load of a medical school curriculum, students did not significantly change their overall study time and any self-care-related activities in the transition to virtual learning. However, transitioning to virtual learning allowed our students to adapt their study strategies, i.e. reducing group study time and increasing lone studying time. Furthermore, students shifted studying time to the morning to optimize the management of the cognitive task-load they faced.