Practice Makes Perfect: The Critical Role of Mixed Practice in the Acquisition of ECG Interpretation Skills

Purpose. To examine the effect of instructional format on medical students' learning of ECG diagnosis. Method. Two experiments employed different learning and practice methods. In the first, students were randomly allocated to one of two instructional approaches, one organized around features (e.g., QRS voltage) and the other around diagnostic categories (e.g., bundle branch blocks), followed by a practice phase. In the second experiment, the …