Medical schools should investigate feasibility and acceptability of creative project-based lessons in their own curricula, using mixed-methods evaluation¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (3 for, 2 mixed) · 1 study (1 review), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The review recommends that "medical schools investigate the feasibility and acceptability of such creative project-based lessons in their own curriculums," with objective assessments of learning gain versus traditional or technology-enhanced approaches, mixed-methods evaluation, and head-to-head cost-effectiveness comparison with high-fidelity counterparts. It also calls for a taxonomy of lesson-design variants and reproduction of published designs with reporting of reproducibility and reception.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Mixed-methods evaluation, since student interaction with a nontraditional learning modality is a complex phenomenon

Constraints¶

• Uncertainty remains around true cost-effectiveness, learning gain versus high-fidelity simulations, and generalisability across cultural backgrounds

Target Learners¶

• undergraduate medical students

Target Learning Goals¶

• medical curriculum design
• learning gain assessment

Claims¶

• Faculty engagement was positively received, with faculty viewing creative projects as pedagogically valuable and learning from student work [+W]
• Students performed better on knowledge tests after creative project interventions, per studies included in the review [+W]
• The review could not conclude whether creative projects affect metacognition outcomes because no included study used validated metacognition inventories [~W]
• Systematic review of 17 studies identifies six themes on creative project-based learning in medical education: enhanced learning, collaborative learning, deep learning, student engagement, student disengagement, and faculty engagement [+W]
• Creative projects can disengage students who lack drawing skill, impose high task burden, and be perceived as equivalent to conventional teaching [~W]

Related Strategies¶

• Rigorously compare PBL with traditional methods before broad PGME implementation, using larger samples, controls, and follow-up

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Yi Tan Yong, Shreyans Panwar, Vallabhajosyula Ranganath. (2025). Learning by making – student-made models and creative projects for medical education: systematic review with qualitative synthesis. BMC Medical Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-025-06716-8