| The goal of this study was to test a scaffolded instructional model in a complex Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) lesson where students evaluated three different medical studies (RCT, case-control, and cohort) on the same topic and used those studies to reach an evidence-based conclusion. The hypothesis was that the students' literature evaluation skills and subsequent application of the literature to address a clinical question would more closely approximate the experts following implementation of the model. The results do not fully support the hypothesis. The conclusions were: (1) third-year doctor of pharmacy students at the college have a limited ability to evaluate medical literature of varying qualities and types and conflicting conclusions; (2) prior to reading the RCT, students' initial clinical conclusions more closely resembled the experts', potentially indicating an unbalanced influence of the RCT, either from RCT bias/preconceptions or a lack of skills transfer in evaluating the RCT; and (3) the instructional model needs further development by adding explicit instructional scaffolding around the Medical Literature Evaluation (MLE) Rubric, vocabulary, and directly addressing student preconceptions/biases. |
