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The Timing Advantage: How One Extra Week with RadClerk Drives 50% Greater Learning Gains

Last month, we promised to reveal the key factor behind the superior performance of the didactic-year cohort. Today, we're sharing the implementation insight that explains this difference – and how it can optimize your RadClerk deployment.

— RadClerk Team

Last month, we promised to reveal the key factor behind the superior performance of the didactic-year cohort. Today, we're sharing the implementation insight that explains this difference – and how it can optimize your RadClerk deployment.

The answer lies in a deceptively simple variable: time. Our cohorts had different access periods to complete RadClerk Didactics in Chest Radiography. The visualization below reveals the powerful impact of this timing decision.

RadClerk Didactics: A Deeper Look at Impact

With RadClerk Didactics, every day makes a difference.

Two large cohorts (N=106) completed RadClerk Didactic in Chest Radiography, given either 1 week or 2 weeks to complete. An imaging-based assessment was delivered before and after the RadClerk experience, graded on a scale 0 (worst) to 10 (best).

Just one additional week of RadClerk Didactics achieved 50% improvement with imaging skills. Both groups showed significant learning versus baseline. Performance quantified using an imaging-based assessment. (N=106 students)

A Mann-Whitney U test confirms that difference in score improvement between the two cohorts is statistically significant (p=0.015). This provides strong evidence that allowing students more time to engage with the didactic material drives deeper, more measurable learning outcomes. N=106 students; 55 students with 1 week of access and 51 students with 2 weeks of access.

The clinical cohort had one week while didactic students had two weeks. But timing isn't just about duration - it's also about developmental stage. The difference between clinical-year and didactic-year cohorts suggests that the optimal timing for RadClerk Didactics implementation may be during foundational learning phases, when students have the cognitive bandwidth to fully engage with complex radiological concepts and are in a learning environment specifically designed for didactic education.

This dual advantage - extended access during a structured learning phase - creates ideal conditions for deep engagement. Didactic-year students benefit from dedicated study time, fewer clinical distractions, and an academic environment that supports reflection, spaced repetition, and gradual building of pattern recognition skills.

The timing advantage demonstrates RadClerk's educational effectiveness, but it also uncovers a deeper question about medical education itself: does improved performance translate to improved practice readiness? After all, knowledge without confidence rarely translates to effective practice. 

But that's a story for next month. In our next update, we're exploring how RadClerk impacts not just what students know, but how they feel about applying that knowledge in clinical settings. What we discovered goes beyond knowledge acquisition to touch on something fundamental about how students see themselves as future clinicians.

Ready to optimize your RadClerk deployment?

More institutions are discovering how RadClerk transforms radiology education through data-driven implementation strategies. Request a Pilot to explore how optimizing the timing of your RadClerk deployment can maximize learning outcomes for your specific program needs, whether your students are in didactic or clinical phases.

Subscribe to stay updated when next month's analysis drops – our findings reveal what happens when improved performance meets something even more transformative for clinical practice.