Medical Students’ Satisfaction with a Web-based Training Module of Clinical Reasoning

There is a paucity of literature regarding the medical students’ perspectives on web-based training of clinical reasoning.

This study aimed to describe the implementation of a web-based training course of clinical reasoning for medical students and to evaluate their satisfaction with the program.

This cross-sectional study was conducted at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2018. Fifty internal medicine interns were consecutively enrolled. The study consisted of two phases. The first phase focused on the development of a web-based training module of clinical reasoning. The second focused on evaluating the trainee’s satisfaction with the virtual course. The educational content of the program was prepared by an expert panel and incorporated in a web-based educational tool designed for virtual training purposes. The students’ satisfaction with the virtual course was assessed using a questionnaire. Each item of the questionnaire was scored from 0 (0) to 1.5 (100). The content validity of the questionnaire determined by an expert panel, and its reliability was measured.

The mean score of each item of the questionnaire ranged from 77.3 to 85.3 which showed that the participants agreed with the items of the questionnaire. Also, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was excellent in nine items of the questionnaire, good in four items, and acceptable in three items. The intraclass correlation coefficient was also estimated as 0.98.

The participants were satisfied with the web-based training tool for clinical reasoning, used in the present study. The developed questionnaire also showed good validity and reliability for the assessment of trainees’ satisfaction with the web-based training module of clinical reasoning.