Educational Technology to Enhance Diabetes Care - Retention Study

This study mapped the time course of forgetting among resident physicians after they use an online learning exercise covering principles of diabetes care. Participants took a pre-test followed by an online tutorial covering aspects of diabetes care. They then completed a post-test on the same topics after a randomly-assigned time delay from 0 to 55 days. We hypothesized that post-test scores after these different time delays would decline following a curvilinear relationship with increasing time. This understanding of forgetting will inform our selection of a time for delivering reinforcement exercises in future educational studies among physicians.