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The main objective of medical schools is to turn relative novices into knowledgeable and skilled professionals who are able to solve clinical problems and are aware of the reach of their knowledge and skills and what goes beyond their capacities. In this chapter we seek to answer the question of whether clinical reasoning can be taught to medical students. We start by describing the development from novice in medicine to expert, providing a theoretical cognitive psychological framework. Several approaches to clinical reasoning skills training are then described, and the implications of this theory are considered for the way medical education can improve students’ clinical reasoning.

To determine if and how teachers are being educated about effective learning strategies we analysed the topical coverage of two highly effective strategies, distributed practice and retrieval practice, in introductory teacher education textbooks and syllabi. We examined 61 textbooks used in Flemish and Dutch teacher education programmes (TEPs) by inventorying descriptive and prescriptive information on these strategies therein. Also, we analysed whether the coverage referred to actual research. The results indicated that mostly textbooks fail to fully represent the strategies. Accurate textbooks are used in a minority of TEPs. Implications and challenges for authors, TEPs and policy-makers are discussed.