PURPOSE
Motivating students to do ungraded, best-practice curricular activities is
a challenge. Using a team-based leaderboard competition in our pre-clerkship
curriculum, we sought to reverse the historical decline in on-time formative
exam completion and increase overall curriculum engagement.
 
METHODS
WMed’s pre-clerkship curriculum joins 6-7 students in Team-Based Learning
(TBL) groups reconstituted for each term. The Leaderboard combines group
member engagement scores (i.e., points for on-time formative exam
completions, synchronous responses to participation questions, and optional
open-lab attendance) each week for a team score. Weekly scores sum across a
course, and four courses sum in a term for corresponding Course and Term
Leaderboards. Each TBL Friday, Teams confidentially receive their Course
Leaderboard scores, and the top 5 teams are presented for public recognition.
Larger value rewards are distributed across each course and term. Competition
began in Term 2 for Graduating Class (GC) of 2028 and in Term 1 for GC29s.
GC25-27 (3 years post-COVID) average provides a historical formative
completion rate. Abstract results are without the final course in Term 3* as
we are midway.
 
RESULTS
Historical Term 1, 2, and 3* formative completion rates were 56.9%, 33.9%,
and 21.5%. Leaderboard introduction significantly increased formative
completion relative to historic controls across all courses for GC28s
(c2(1,N=7)=86.78, p<0.001) with Term 2) 50.8% and 3*) 41.3% completion
rates. Synchronous responses to audience participation questions in Term 1
live events have also increased - 58% and 46% for GC28 (no Leaderboard) and
82% and 74% for GC29 (with Leaderboard) in our ‘Genetics’ and ‘Immunology’
courses, respectively. This competition has been implemented without
sacrificing the collaborative ethos of either cohort as reported in student
focus groups.
 
CONCLUSION
Introducing a team-based Leaderboard competition in our pre-clerkship
curriculum has increased engagement in ungraded, curricular activities.
Future analyses will examine whether this increased engagement enhances
individual summative performance.