Use of Social Learning Tools Improves Engagement and Performance in Undergraduate Medical Physiology Education

Objective: We sought to increase engagement, reduce cognitive load, and foster self-directed learning while potentially improving exam performance by incorporating a social annotation tool (SAT) into a flipped classroom setting in an undergraduate medical education curriculum. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that using the SAT (Perusall) as preparatory material for a flipped classroom would increase engagement and academic performance compared to using a pre-recorded lecture video when teaching cardiovascular physiology. Methods: Within a first-year undergraduate medical physiology course, students (n=125) used the SAT to annotate assigned cardiovascular physiology readings before a flipped classroom session. This strategy was compared to the common practice of providing students with a pre-recorded lecture. Students took an assessment before and after to assess knowledge acquisition and engagement with both formats. Results: The SAT intervention identified an average time spent engaged with the material of 142.1 minutes ( n=125), with a pre- and post-assessment score improvement of approximately 20.25% (61.5% vs 82%; n=81). The pre-recorded one-hour lecture found that students engaged with the material, on average, for 51.45 minutes, corresponding to an average of 91% video completion. Findings from this lecture intervention showed the pre- and post-assessment scores improved by an average of 5% (71% vs. 76%; n=80). A paired sample t-test identified a significant difference between the percent improvement between quizzes for SAT (M=19.71, SD=26.374) and percent improvement for recorded lecture (M=6.57, SD=26.369); t(69)=3.450, p=0.001. The use of SAT enhanced academic performance in midterm and final exams. The average performance in questions that mapped back to the flipped classroom utilizing SAT text was 91% (n=6) , as compared to an average performance of 73% to those questions that mapped back to the online pre-recorded lecture (n=11 ). Conclusions: Incorporating SATs into a flipped classroom model increased engagement and academic performance versus passive lectures when teaching medical physiology. Our study provides support to the use of social learning tools to enhance active learning in undergraduate medical education. none. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.