Abstract Details

To determine whether an innovative Jeopardy-style review format improves medical student performance on the National Board of Medical Examiners Subject Examination in Clinical Neurology (NBME examination) compared to a traditional examination item review session.

During the final week of a required 4-week neurology clerkship, students participated in a review session formatted after a televised gameshow. NBME examination scores from these students were tabulated and compared by Mann-Whitney test to a historical control cohort enrolled in the Neurology clerkship in the prior academic year. The historical controls participated in a conventional session that reviewed examination items without gamification. An end-of-clerkship survey collected student feedback.

During the innovation period, 45 students completed the Neurology clerkship, compared to 41 historical controls. The median shelf score (interquartile range, IQR) was 79 (72-87) for the innovation group compared to 84 (78-86) for controls (p=0.31). Fourteen of 34 respondents (41.2%) to the end-of-clerkship survey rated Neuro-Jeopardy as “extremely helpful” or “moderately helpful.” Written feedback was mixed, with some students praising the game as “fun and informative” while others found it “frightening” and became “more stressed” after playing. Commercial question banks were the resource most often rated “useful” for both the NBME examination (29/37, 78.4%) and the clerkship (31/37, 83.8%).

A game-based review session did not improve NBME examination scores in this cohort. As gamified learning increases in popularity, educators must ensure that this form of learning meets the needs of students.