A correlational study of visual and auditory reaction time with their academic performance among the first year medical students

Abstract

Background: Reaction time (RT) is a measure of the response to a stimulus which plays a very important role in our lives as its practical implications may be of great consequences in the learning process and cognition. Aims and Objectives: To compare visual RTs (VRTs) and auditory RTs (ARTs) on the basis of gender and to correlate it with the academic performance. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 100 first year medical students, out of which 50 were males and 50 were females. The RT was tested using PC1000Hz RT. Academic performance was considered as an average of the internal assessment test conducted in physiology in the academic years 2015-16. Statistical analysis was performed sing SPSS software version 19. Result: The ART is (184 ms) faster than VRT (208 ms) in both males and females. VRT and ART were significantly different between males and females (P < 0.05). The VRT was 199.36 + 23.239 in males when compared to females 217.44 + 29.151 with P = 0.049, and ART was 178.20 + 29.928 and 190.12 + 19.442 with P = 0.021. No significant difference in academic performance between the two genders; however, there was a significant negative correlation of the RT with the academic performance with VRT (r = −0.290, P = 0.003) and ART (r = −0.271, P = 0.006). Conclusion: ART is faster than the VRT in medical students. Furthermore, male medical students have faster RTs as compared to females for both auditory and visual stimuli. Furthermore, students with higher academic performance had faster RT, suggesting that attention, concentration, arousal level and processing speed is an important for students’ success in learning process and cognition.