BetterPoster: Knowledge Transfer by Poster Design: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Poster displays are commonly used to present scholarly activity. Most current research evaluates posters' visual appeal. Isolated studies looking at knowledge transfer have evaluated standalone posters. The innovation of BetterPoster highlighted the idea that design may be as important as poster content for knowledge transfer. The objective of this study was to evaluate the difference in knowledge transfer between poster designs.

We randomized participants to two different poster designs (48 viewed a traditional poster design; 46 viewed the BetterPoster model). We obtained baseline knowledge via anonymous 5-question pretest. Participants viewed their assigned poster then completed a 10-question posttest. Eight questions tested general medicine knowledge about the topic and two questions tested the case's scholarly question and conclusion. We used a full factorial model analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to analyze test scores between the two posters for the 10-question posttest and the 2-question subset.

A total of 94 participants recruited at a family medicine conference completed the study. We conducted a full factorial model ANCOVA of the 10-item posttest summed score, which was not found to be significant. A similar analysis on the two posttest learning point items showed that participants viewing the BetterPoster scored significantly higher, (F [1, 91]=8.00, P=.006).

Our study was designed to move past evaluating visual appeal of poster design to effectiveness of knowledge transfer. We found that poster design did not impact knowledge transfer of the general case topic; however, it did improve knowledge related to key concepts of the case.