Do different medical curricula influence self-assessed clinical thinking of students?

Objectives: As a fundamental element of medical practice, clinical reasoning should be cultivated in courses of study in human medicine. To date, however, no conclusive evidence has been offered as to what forms of teaching and learning are most effective in achieving this goal. The Diagnostic Thinking Inventory (DTI) was developed as a means of measuring knowledge-unrelated components of clinical reasoning. The present pilot study examines the adequacy of this instrument in measuring differences in the clinical reasoning of students in varying stages of education in three curricula of medical studies. Methods: The Diagnostic Thinking Inventory (DTI) comprises 41 items in two subscales (“Flexibility in Thinking” and “Structure of Knowledge in Memory”). Each item contains a statement or finding concerning clinical reasoning in the form of a stem under which a 6-point scale presents opposing conclusions. The subjects are asked to assess their clinical thinking within this range. The German-language version of the DTI was completed by 247 student volunteers from three schools and varying clinical semesters. In a quasi-experimental design, 219 subjects from traditional and model courses of study in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia took part. Specifically, these were 5th, 6th and 8th semester students from the model course of study at Witten/Herdecke University (W/HU), from the model (7th and 9th semester) and traditional (7th semester) courses of study at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and from the model course of study (9th semester) at the University of Cologne (UoC). The data retrieved were quantitatively assessed. Results: The reliability of the questionnaire in its entirety was good (Cronbach’s alpha between 0.71 and 0.83); the reliability of the subscales ranged between 0.49 and 0.75. The different groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney test, revealing significant differences among semester cohorts within a school as well as between students from similar academic years in different schools. Among the participants from the model course of study at the W/HU, scores increased from the 5th to the 6th semester and from the 5th to the 9th semester. Among individual cohorts at RUB, no differences could be established between model and traditional courses of study or between 7th and 9th semester students in model courses of study. Comparing all participating highest semester students, the 8th semester participants from the W/HU achieved the highest scores – significantly higher than those of 9th semester RUB students or 9th semester UoC students. Scores from the RUB 9th semester participants were significantly higher than those of the 9th semester UoC participants. Discussion: The German-language version of the DTI measures self-assessed differences in diagnostic reasoning among students from various semesters and different model and traditional courses of study with satisfactory reliability. The results can be used for discussion in the context of diverse curricula. The DTI is therefore appropriate for further research that can then be correlated with the different teaching method characteristics and outcomes of various curricula.