Jabbari Yasaman, Gottlieb Michael, von Mohrenschildt Martin, Lee Mark, Arnold Kristen, Shedden Judith M, Sherbino Jonathan
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Emergency Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 8;20(9):e0331299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331299. eCollection 2025.
Research on listening to podcasts while driving suggested no significant difference compared to undistracted listening. However, these studies were conducted in non-controlled driving environments, limiting the evaluation of the environment's impact. This study aimed to compare knowledge acquisition and retention among resident physicians and undergraduate students while listening to medical education podcasts in a controlled, simulator-based, driving environment versus an undistracted listening condition.
A randomized, crossover trial involved 19 residents and 22 undergraduate students from McMaster university and McMaster hospital. Participants listened to podcasts while driving in an immersive, high-fidelity motion simulator that mimics different driving environments: a high-distraction city environment and a low-distraction country environment. In the undistracted listening condition, participants listened to podcasts while being seated at a desk. Immediate and delayed recall tests after a month were administered, and data were analyzed using a 2x2 mixed ANOVA.
There were no significant differences in knowledge acquisition (e.g., accuracy) between the undistracted, city driving, and country driving conditions (p > 0.05, η2 = 0.011). However, the country driving condition demonstrated slightly higher accuracy compared to the city driving condition in the immediate assessment condition (p < 0.05, η2 = 0.018). Medical expertise level (i.e., resident vs student) did not affect knowledge acquisition across different listening conditions (p > 0.05, η2 = 0.007).
In a simulated environment, knowledge acquisition from a podcast is not compromised by the attention needed for driving a vehicle. The two distraction levels used in this experiment showed no significant interference with knowledge acquisition. This holds true regardless of participants' medical expertise. This study highlights the potential of incorporating podcasts into daily commuting to support ongoing education without requiring dedicated study time, enhancing both flexibility and efficiency in professional development.
关于开车时收听播客的研究表明，与未分心收听相比没有显著差异。然而，这些研究是在非受控驾驶环境中进行的，限制了对环境影响的评估。本研究旨在比较住院医师和本科生在基于模拟器的受控驾驶环境中收听医学教育播客与未分心收听情况下的知识获取和保留情况。
一项随机交叉试验涉及麦克马斯特大学和麦克马斯特医院的19名住院医师和22名本科生。参与者在模拟不同驾驶环境的沉浸式高保真运动模拟器中开车时收听播客：高干扰的城市环境和低干扰的乡村环境。在未分心收听情况下，参与者坐在桌前收听播客。在一个月后进行即时和延迟回忆测试，并使用2×2混合方差分析对数据进行分析。
在未分心、城市驾驶和乡村驾驶条件下，知识获取（如准确性）没有显著差异（p>0.05，η2=0.011）。然而，在即时评估条件下，乡村驾驶条件下的准确性略高于城市驾驶条件（p<0.05，η2=0.018）。医学专业水平（即住院医师与学生）在不同收听条件下不影响知识获取（p>0.05，η2=0.007）。
在模拟环境中，收听播客获取知识不会因驾驶车辆所需的注意力而受到影响。本实验中使用的两种干扰水平对知识获取没有显著干扰。无论参与者的医学专业水平如何都是如此。本研究强调了将播客纳入日常通勤以支持持续教育而无需专门学习时间的潜力，提高了职业发展的灵活性和效率。
