Self-Paced Polling Increases Medical Student Engagement in Recorded Lectures and Improves Examination Performance

Research Statement/Research Question
Do self-paced polling questions in recorded lectures increase preclinical medical students' engagement and academic performance?

Background and relevance of the study
Engaging medical students in the curriculum may promote a deep approach to learning. However, class attendance is often low, and many students prefer recorded lectures. The shift to more online classes presents further challenges for student engagement. Self-paced polling with recorded lectures could increase student engagement in online education as well as address some students’ preference for recorded lectures.

Design and Methods
For second-year medical students, 148 audience response questions were given in three days. Participation in live or self-paced polling was incentivized with course points. With self-paced polling, students answered at their own pace while watching recorded lectures. Students who participated actively in all three days were subdivided into the Live group (2-3 days with live polling) and Self-paced (0-1 day with live polling) and compared to the Inactive group. Performance of the three groups was compared on seven examinations. Students also voluntarily answered: “How did the self-paced polling affect your experience with recorded lectures?”

Results
127/165 (77.0%) students used self-paced polling. 46 students were Inactive. 60/119 active students primarily used self-paced, and 59 used live polling. The Self-paced group performed significantly better than the Inactive group only on the fourth examination after incentivized, self-paced polling was made available. 115/127 (90.6%) students made positive comments about self-paced polling, while 12 (9.4%) were negative. In the positive comments, students expressed their emotional (n=59), behavioral (n=34), or cognitive (n=39) engagement.

Conclusions
Self-paced polling questions in recorded lectures enhanced students' emotional, behavioral, and/or cognitive engagement with course material and improved examination performance.

Significance
Medical educators can use self-paced polling to enhance student engagement and academic performance. Future studies should replicate and extend findings, with a focus on the impact of self-polling on deep and strategic approaches to learning and long-term retention.