IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v13y1993i3p198-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hypothesis Generation and the Coordination of Theory and Evidence in Novice Diagnostic Reasoning

Author

Listed:
  • José F. Arocha
  • Vimla L. Patel
  • Yogesh C. Patel

Abstract

This study investigates hypothesis generation and evaluation in clinical problem solving by medical trainees. The study focuses on 1) directionality of reasoning and 2) use of confir mation and disconfirmation strategies in generating and evaluating hypotheses. Two clinical problems were divided into segments of information containing presenting complaint, past history, and physical examination. The initial information indicated a typical myocardial infarct but subsequent information contradicted it. The results showed that the participating students predominantly used forward reasoning and confirmation strategies. When faced with con tradictory evidence: 1) second-year students ignored cues in the problem or reinterpreted them to fit the hypothesis; 2) third-year students generated concurrent hypotheses to account for different sets of data; and 3) fourth-year students generated several initial hypotheses and subsequently narrowed the hypothesis space by generating a single coherent diagnostic explanation. The results are discussed in terms of coordination of clinical evidence and its relationship to scientific reasoning. Key words: hypothesis generation; diagnostic reasoning; novice strategies; medical problem solving. (Med Decis Making 1993;13:198-211)

Suggested Citation

  • José F. Arocha & Vimla L. Patel & Yogesh C. Patel, 1993. "Hypothesis Generation and the Coordination of Theory and Evidence in Novice Diagnostic Reasoning," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 13(3), pages 198-211, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:13:y:1993:i:3:p:198-211
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X9301300305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X9301300305
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X9301300305?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Backlund, Lars & Skaner, Ylva & Montgomery, Henry & Bring, Johan & Strender, Lars-Erik, 2003. "Doctors' decision processes in a drug-prescription task: The validity of rating scales and think-aloud reports," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 108-117, May.
    2. Romy Müller & Franziska Kessler & David W. Humphrey & Julian Rahm, 2021. "Data in Context: How Digital Transformation Can Support Human Reasoning in Cyber-Physical Production Systems," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-36, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:13:y:1993:i:3:p:198-211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.