Key feature-cases as virtual patients in veterinary neurological education

Centre for E-Learning, Didactics and Educational Research (ZELDA),
University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany Virtual
patients (VP) are a common eLearning feature in veterinary medicine.
Mostly long cases (LC) including explanations and expert opinions are
used. Key Feature-Cases (KF) are short cases, focusing a few critical
decision points that are essential for clinical reasoning (CR) to
solve a case. Usability, learning success and acceptance were
determined and compared between the VP-Formats. Two elective
courses were offered to undergraduate veterinary students, presenting
38 VPs in CASUS®. In eight cases students were able to
create illness scripts and finally compare it with the expert
response using the CRTool as new feature. These cases were compared
to eight other cases with similar clinical findings without the
CR-Tool. Besides the evaluation of learning analytics (time, success,
case scores) an evaluation was performed via LimeSurvey®. A
total of 229 students participated, 199 completed the survey. The
average processing time of LCs was 53 min, that of KF-Cases
17 min. 78% of LCs were successfully completed, 73% of the KFCases.
The average processing time of cases with CR-Tool was
19 min. The success rate was 58.3% vs. 60.3% for cases without
CR-Tool. 134 respondents agreed that the casework made them
feel better prepared to secure a diagnosis in real patients. Flexibility
in learning (n=93) and practical relevance (n=65) were the most
frequently listed positive remarks. KF-Cases are suitable for the
majority of students and significantly contribute to strengthen
clinical decision-making skills in veterinary neurology. The CR-Tool
is useful but requires further adaptation in structure and
terminology.