Association of Online Learning Behavior and Learning Outcomes for Medical Students: Large-Scale Usage Data Analysis (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital learning environments have become very common in the training of medical professionals, and students often use such platforms for exam preparation. Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are a common format in medical exams and are used by students to prepare for said exams. OBJECTIVE We aimed to examine whether particular learning activities contributed more strongly than others to users’ exam performance. METHODS We analyzed data from users of an online platform that provides learning materials for medical students in preparation for their final exams. We analyzed whether the number of learning cards viewed and the number of MCQs taken were positively related to learning outcomes. We also examined whether viewing learning cards or answering MCQs was more effective. Finally, we tested whether taking individual notes predicted learning outcomes, and whether taking notes had an effect after controlling for the effects of learning cards and MCQs. Our analyses from the online platform Amboss are based on user activity data, which supplied the number of learning cards studied and test questions answered. We also included the number of notes from each of those 23,633 users who had studied at least 200 learning cards and had answered at least 1000 test exam questions in the 180 days before their state exam. The activity data for this analysis was collected retrospectively, using Amboss archival usage data from April 2014 to April 2017. Learning outcomes were measured using the final state exam scores that were calculated by using the answers voluntarily entered by the participants. RESULTS We found correlations between the number of cards studied (r=.22; P CONCLUSIONS These results show that online learning platforms are particularly helpful whenever learners engage in active elaboration in learning material, such as by answering MCQs or taking notes.