Evaluation of 3 Cognitive Load Measures During Repeated Simulation Exercises for Novice Anesthesiology Residents

Introduction Maintaining an appropriate level of cognitive load during simulations is crucial to optimize learning. We evaluated 3 subjective measures of cognitive load in a simulated operating room (OR) context across multiple scenarios of varying complexity. Methods This observational study of 25 first-year anesthesiology residents took place during a 5-day simulation “Boot Camp.” Each day, participants completed 2 different high-fidelity scenarios in a fully equipped simulated OR. After each simulation, participants completed 3 cognitive load measures: the Paas scale, NASA Task Load Index (TLX), and Cognitive Load Component (CLC) questionnaire. Two-way repeated-measures and mixed-design analyses of variance, with the cognitive load measures and scenarios as independent factors, were used to determine the effect of using different measures to report cognitive load. Results Cognitive load scores reported by all measures correlated significantly with one another (P
Source: Simulation in Healthcare: The Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare - Category: Medical Devices Tags: Empirical Investigations Source Type: research