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Project

Optimizing help-seeking behavior in the acquisition of clinical reasoning and decision making.

In order to acquire effective clinical reasoning and clinical decision making skills, medical students need to learn to look at the problem from different viewpoints and exert effective help-seeking behavior. To assist students in doing so, open learning environments provide learners with a variety of tools as affordances for complex learning (e.g., video, simulation). However, students do not always use the tools at their disposal or they use them in a suboptimal way which, in turn, affects their performance. One reason behind this inadequate use of tools might be that students simply do not perceive the tools as functional for their learning and that they do not perceive that they are in control over tool use. Since it can be assumed that students are best placed to control their tool use, the question is then how educational technology research can assist in promoting and optimizing students help-seeking behavior and tool use. Several research studies have investigated the added value of giving advice in order to promote tool use. The results are mixed and call for a more fine-grained definition of advice, taking into account students perceptions. The research objectives are to investigate the added value of advice as instructional strategy in order to enhance students perceptions and to promote and enhance the quality of tool use; and to compare different dimensions of advice, and their relation with students perceptions, to promote and optimize students tool use.
Date:1 Oct 2012 →  31 Mar 2014
Keywords:Instructional design, Help-seeking behavior, Tool use, Support tools, Computer-based instruction, Medical education, Clinical decision making, Clinical reasoning
Disciplines:Biological and physiological psychology, General psychology, Other psychology and cognitive sciences