Effect of Cueing on Learning Transfer Among Health Profession Students Engaged in a Case-Based Analogical Reasoning Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of cueing on learning transfer among pre-professional, health profession undergraduates engaged in a case-based analogical reasoning exercise. Methods: The study design was a quasi-experimental, randomized post-test design. Volunteer undergraduate pre-professional health profession students (N = 192) were assigned to either an experimental group, which received two written clinical cases with cues or the control, which received the same cases, but no cues. After participants read the cases, a target case was provided for solution based on the previous cases. Target case solutions were scored by content experts for extent of transfer of a structural principle and optimal treatment method implicitly embedded in the comparison cases. Results: Cued participants (n = 98) demonstrated significantly more learning transfer (t (175.91) = 2.65; p = .009; d = .39) of the structural principle than non-cued participants (n = 94). However, no significant difference was found for cued and non-cued groups for transfer of the optimal treatment method (t (190) = .874; p = .39; and a small effect size (d = .13) was present. Conclusion: Learning transfer improves among pre-professional health profession undergraduates when cued during a case-based analogical reasoning experience. The findings support and extend previous multiple case-based analogical reasoning study outcomes indicating that multiple patient cases with cueing should be utilized over single case examination with or without cueing to promote transfer of learning. Improvements in learning transfer may lead to improved quality of patient care.