Correlation of seminar attendance and written examinations in medical education

Objectives: The parts of constructive alignment, i.e. learning objectives, activities and assessment are crucial for good learning outcomes. However, they must constantly be evaluated so as to verify the alignment. Our aim was to investigate if attendance to our casebased seminars in family medicine contributed to exam performance and whether gender had any impact for undergraduate students at the medical school of Lund University in Sweden.
Material and methods: Student performances in assessments of eleven consecutive classes (semesters) were studied and the attendance rate was documented as well as gender. These data were then used to analyse the correlation with the results on the written exam with linear regression and multilevel linear regression. Attendance was optional.
Results: The marks on the written exam rose by 0.70 points (95% CI 0.49-0.90) corresponding with every seminar attended, 0.61 (95% CI 0.39-0.84) for men, 0.79 (95% CI 0.55-1.03) for women. Maximum points were 40. There was no detectable influence of teachers.
Conclusions: For the majority of medical students, it is worthwhile to attend case-based seminars in family medicine as much as possible to enhance results in written exams. However, a few can skip seminars altogether and still pass their exams.