INFORMATION AND COGNITION IN MEDICAL EDUCATION

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This project will explore the role of structured biomedical information in the education of medical students. The proposed work will focus on how novices use a database developed to support learning of the biomedical sciences, and the effects these interactions have on knowledge of specific content domains. By clarifying how students use a structured information resource to promote learning, the proposed studies can guide the creation of learning tools employing information technology. The proposed study has two complementary aims. The first explores outcomes: how the interplay between an external information resource--the database--and a student's internal cognitive resources shapes knowledge organization and understanding of a content domain. The second aim explores information search strategies: how searching proficiency develops over time, the generalizability of searching skills across databases, how patterns of database access vary with problem complexity, and the relationship between searching proficiency and proficiency in problem solving. The research design is structured but, at the same time, naturalistic. We will create a "controlled information environment" within segments of the curriculum at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine. The basis of this environment will be the existing INQUIRER knowledge exploration system developed by the investigators to support education in medical microbiology, and to be extended as part of the proposed research to address the pathology of infectious diseases. The research data will derive from students functioning in ongoing curricula, working with the database and solving problems created by the faculty as part of the routine activities of learning the biomedical sciences.