The Impact of Writing on Academic Performance for Medical Students

Abstract

Background Since the 1970s, writing has been widely used in classroom settings. Writing enhances learning, but there are limited studies that prove its effectiveness, especially in the medical education setting. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the effect of writing on medical students’ academic performance. Methods An experiment was conducted with 139 medical students from Seoul National University College of Medicine. They were randomly assigned to three study conditions: self-study (SS), expository writing (EW), and argumentative writing (AW). Each group studied the given material by the method they were assigned, and they were tested on their understanding and transfer of knowledge. Results The results showed that the two writing groups displayed better performance than the SS group in transfer type items, while there was no difference in scores between the EW and AW group. However, the three groups showed no significant difference in their scores for rote-memory type items . Also, there was a positive correlation between writing score and transfer type items in the AW group. Conclusions This study provides empirical evidence for writing to be adopted in medical education for greater educational benefits. Our findings indicate that writing can enhance learning and higher-order thinking, which are critical for medical students.