Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice
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Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract · Mar 2012
The impact of selected contextual factors on experts' clinical reasoning performance (does context impact clinical reasoning performance in experts?).
Context specificity, or the variation in a participant's performance from one case, or situation, to the next, is a recognized problem in medical education. However, studies have not explored the potential reasons for context specificity in experts using the lens of situated cognition and cognitive load theories (CLT). Using these theories, we explored the influence of selected contextual factors on clinical reasoning performance in internal medicine experts. ⋯ Contextual factors appear to impact expert physician performance. The impact observed is consistent with situated cognition and CLT's predictions. These findings have potential implications for educational theory and clinical practice.