A toolbox of strategies to improve test-taking skills: A comparison of student perceptions in physiology coursework

Abstract

Recent changes in the Medical and Dental National Board Examination structures have renewed interest in the development of test-taking strategies for professional students. It is often assumed that these students have developed proficient test-taking skills and metacognitive abilities prior to admittance. However, the assessments in these programs and for national licensure require a high level of reasoning and integration that may necessitate additional training.The goal of this project was to present a toolbox of strategies that provided opportunities to: contemplate new test-taking strategies, observe modeling of appropriate skills, participate in formative and team-based activities to practice skills, and reflect on the use of the strategies following summative course assessments. It was hypothesized that the implementation of the immersive test-taking strategies program would improve student perceptions of their abilities and confidence regarding national board preparation.Dental students engage in physiology coursework in the first two semesters of the curriculum, which likely serves as a crucial time for the refinement of appropriate test-taking strategies. For this study, a “toolbox” of four methods was implemented with 120 students enrolled in a first-year Dental Physiology course. These included: 1. An introductory video that provided students with ten tips for approaching high-level exam questions 2. Problem solution videos interspersed with class practice problems to walk students through rationales 3. Collaborative group assessments in which students implemented the strategies in teams to prepare for exams and 4. Unit exam debriefings to review the question rationales.While all methods were positively reviewed on surveys, students indicated that the problem solution videos and the collaborative group assessments were more helpful and improved their test-taking skills significantly more than the other strategies (P<0.05, one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test). On average, students rated their test-taking skills when entering the program at a 3.71 on a 5-point Likert scale. At the conclusion of the semester, they indicated that they had developed strong test-taking strategies for the course (average of 4.21) and felt more prepared to complete the National Board Dental Examination (average of 4.48)These results suggest that a multi-pronged approach, with frequent opportunities to practice test-taking strategies, can improve student perceptions of their ability to master high-level and integrated questions. Future studies will examine correlations between student perceptions and actual exam performance, and differences between medical and dental student populations. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 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.