Hierarchically Ordered Instructional Activities for the Development of ClinicallyRelevant Competencies: A Sequential Path Model

Abstract

A potential benefit in medical education is the use of hierarchically ordered instruction (Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives) to progressively develop the intellectual capabilities leading to clinically relevant competencies in medical students. In this study, faculty observations indicated significant improvements in the students clinically relevant competencies compared to students trained without hierarchically ordered instructional methods. Student responses demonstrated that the sequential ordering of instructional activities significantly contributed to the development of their evolving clinical competencies (R^2M = .62, p < .05).