Frame genAI virtual patient experiences: prompt experimentation with AI capabilities and orient students to its limits¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The authors recommend supporting history-taking from genAI-enabled virtual patients by framing the experience: encouraging students to experiment with the AI's humanlike capabilities and helping them recognize and adapt to its limitations. They suggest tutors may need to encourage humanistic engagement, reinforced by a broad orientation to genAI in PBL, and that implementation early in the curriculum — perhaps the first year — may prevent an ePBLM-style querying framework from taking hold.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Tutor encouragement to engage with the AI's humanlike capabilities
• A broad orientation to genAI highlighting opportunities for its use in PBL

Constraints¶

• Tested only as recommendations from one exploratory pilot; the facilitator in this study deliberately offered no such framing

Target Learners¶

• medical students in PBL curricula

Target Learning Goals¶

• patient-centered history-taking communication
• recognizing and adapting to AI limitations

Related Strategies¶

• Evaluate AI standardized patient systems with both endpoint and process-sensitive outcomes

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Allison Mool · Jacob Schmid · Thomas Johnston · Kodi J. Smith McCoy · Zachary Patterson · Hannah Feldt · William Thomas · Emma Fenner · Kevin Lu · Raya Gandhi · Adam Western · Brendan Seabold · Daniel Vollmer · Roshan Nallaveettil · Anthony Fanelli · Logan Schmillen · Shelley Tischkau · Anna T. Cianciolo · Pinckney Benedict · Richard Selinfreund. (2026). Using Generative AI to Simulate Patient History-Taking in a Problem-Based Learning Tutorial: A Mixed-Methods Study. Technology, Knowledge and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-025-09929-4