The Role of Gender in the Use of Electronic Asynchronous Weekly Board
Review Questions in Osteopathic Medical Student Education
Richard P. Wyeth, James Powers
Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, Virginia Campus
Abstract: Several studies have evaluated gender-related differences in the facility and
comfort of electronic content delivery in higher education, supporting both differences and
similarities for men compared to women. These studies are less common in graduate or
professional curricula and no studies are found addressing gender-based distinctions in
osteopathic medical schools (OMS). Medical school admission requires undergraduate
curriculum completion with significant science and technology. The authors hypothesized
that OMS students would show no differences in gender-based use of an internallydeveloped weekly email based question-and-answer forum, available to all VCOM
students – “The Weakly Bored.” At the conclusion of the 2014-15 academic year, a survey
asked students to anonymously indicate their gender, MCAT scores, current GPA, and
frequency with which they read the weekly forum question. Data were analyzed with
analysis of variance, Student’s t test, and presented as the mean ± standard devotion or chi
square for categorical data, as appropriate. Survey respondents (n =114) were identified
as 43% female and 52% male, differing from enrollment data (which shows 54% female
and 46% male, p <0.05). Statistical differences were noted when comparing MCAT scores
between females (25.1 ± 2.5) and males (26.3 ± 2.7 – p <0.05), but GPAs were not
statistically different, at 3.59 ± 0.30 (females) and 3.59 ± 0.32 (males). Likelihood of
reading and answering the question weekly (prior to receiving the correct answer) was
measured by a Likert 5-category scale, ranging from “always” to “never” for both
questions. Analysis shows that males were more than twice as likely to read and answer
the question compared to females (p <0.05). Results of this IRB-approved study lead to
the conclusion that male OMS students are more likely than females (potentially due to
higher MCAT scores) to comfortably access electronic asynchronous board review
elements, despite a similar GPA.