Pilot evaluation of teaching strategies in ambulatory pediatrics.

Creating an effective learning experience for medical students in ambulatory pediatrics can be a problem. In a pilot study several strategies to improve learning were tested on 51 students during their eight-week basic pediatric clerkship. Each student spent half of this clerkship in the outpatient area. Thirty-six received a detailed list of cognitive and skill objectives at the beginning of their outpatient experience, and 18 of these also had structured individual teaching sessions with a staff pediatrician. The individual teaching sessions tended to improve performance in patient evaluation skills, but neither approach improved the attainment of factual knowledge or the students' evaluations of their outpatient experiences. Further study of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of various teaching technics is needed.