Introduction
The predominant method of learning Medicine at its core has remained unchanged for decades. This stagnancy creates a need for making learning more effective, insightful, and quantified. 'Schema' achieves this through e-learning, active feedback, and quantified learning by granulating the medical curriculum into specific subtopics selected based on the crucial knowledge that a competent medical learner must possess, hereafter referred to as 'yield'. The aim of this particular study is a multidimensional competency analysis of medical students in solving clinical scenario-based MCQs pertaining to vertically integrated topics derived from the 'Schema'.
Methods
A retrospective study was conducted by analyzing the user data of a leading e-learning platform for medical students. For the purposes of this study, twenty such 'high-yield' Schema topics were shortlisted as being the most crucial knowledge areas. Students' performance in solving a fixed set of SOC-MCQs of these Schema topics was used to gauge their competence. Performance variation over five years (2018-2022) was also analyzed to study the changing patterns in topic-specific performance.
Results
A total of 20 Schema topics were shortlisted, consisting of 128 MCQs. The number of participants solving each Single Option Correct Multiple Choice Question (SOC-MCQ) ranged from 60,080 to 2,06,672. A significant improvement in the Net Delta was observed in 9 topics. Performance in other topics showed either no significant change or a significant downtrend.
Conclusion
Significant performance uptrend (ND = 128%) was observed in Anaphylaxis, Basic Lifesaving Skills, ST-Elevated Myocardial Infarction, Glasgow Coma Scale, Sub Dural Hemorrhage & Syndromic management of Sexually Transmitted Infections, most of which are either acute or emergency conditions. A significant downtrend in performance was seen in Schema topics such as Asthma management, Hypertension management, Diabetic Ketoacidosis, and Subarachnoid hemorrhage that pertain to chronic conditions. Several hypotheses for these findings can be derived, the subjective validities and collective impacts of which ought to be explored in more in-depth and broader studies in the future.