A Randomized Crossover Study to Compare the Critical Thinking of Medical Students When Using Video-based or Written Cases

Tutorials at Harvard Medical School use problem-based learning with written cases. Students work in groups under the supervision of a tutor who guides their exploration of the material. As students progress through the curriculum there is an opportunity to advance the complexity of the material they are presented with. Video-based patient case studies have been shown to improve critical thinking ratios in paediatric medical student problem-based learning exercises, and time spent on data exploration, theory building and theory evaluation in postgraduate residency programs. We hypothesize that video provides a stimulus that improves cognitive processing and critical thinking among medical students, as compared to working from the text-based transcript of the same case.