A Low-Cost Digital GRAT for Team-Based Learning in Medical Education

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a structured collaborative instructional strategy that originated in higher education and was later adopted broadly in the health professions. Its core sequence includes learner preparation, an individual readiness assurance test (iRAT), a group readiness assurance test (gRAT, also termed tRAT), and application-focused activities. A distinctive feature of the gRAT is the use of Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) scratch cards, which allow teams to answer until correct while receiving decreasing partial credit after unsuccessful attempts. Reproducing this logic digitally is not trivial, because the online format must preserve immediate feedback, attempt-sensitive scoring, and rapid reporting of team performance. This short communication describes a simple, low-cost web-based method for digitally emulating the paper scratch-off gRAT using HTML, JavaScript, and PHP, with optional reporting by e-mail or Telegram bot. In the author's experience, this strategy has worked very well over five semesters in a medical school setting. The resource is openly available on GitHub. [1-8]Keywords: team-based learning; medical education; readiness assurance test; IF-AT; digital assessment; Telegram bot.