Investigating the effect of distance between the teacher and learner on the student perception of a neuroanatomical near-peer teaching programme

Abstract

PurposeNear-peer teaching (NPT) is a highly valuable resource for the education of medical undergraduates with benefits to the students, teachers themselves, and the faculty. To maximise the effectiveness of such teaching programmes, the aim of this study was to determine how the student learning experience, and underpinning social and cognitive congruencies changes as the learner–teacher distance increases.MethodsSecond-year medical students at the University of Southampton participated in a series of neuroanatomy, extra-curricular revision sessions taught by the third-, fourth-, and fifth-year medical students and junior doctors. The students completed a validated questionnaire after the session rating various aspects of the teaching.ResultsAlthough all teachers delivered sessions that we rated highly with a mean perceived gain in knowledge of 18 % amongst all students, it was found that the third- and fourth-year medical students delivered a session that was rated significantly better than the fifth-year students and junior doctors across all, but one areas of feedback.ConclusionsWe believe that these findings may be explained by the diminishing social and cognitive congruencies shared between learner and teacher with increasing distance. From our results, we hypothesise that graduation is an important threshold, where there is a significant drop in congruencies between the learner and teacher, therefore, having a significant impact on the perception of the NPT session.

Learning ideals: Critical reflections on a near-peer initiative at Leeds

“…Likewise, previous authors have explained benefits of peer-assisted learning in terms of the high level of congruence between teachers and learners (Ross & Cameron, 2007;Stephens et al, 2016). Indeed, there is some evidence in our setting to suggest that first year medical students see medical education students as "one of us".…”

“…Though we are aware of contexts where it may be helpful for near-peers to teach more "organically" or independently (Bennett et al, 2015;Stephens et al, 2016), we feel the guidance of an experienced tutor is essential when teaching important topics such as professionalism, patient safety, and teamwork; working with medical students in their first transitional year, and dealing with complex group dynamics. Although medical education students possess valuable insider experience of the medical course, they need help to ensure that first year students meet essential course requirements.…”

Ten considerations for implementing effective and sustainable near-peer teaching in clinical anatomy education

“…Therefore, it lends itself to being understood more deeply when explained in different ways because of the steeper learning curves involved . This gives more scope to maximise the benefits of NPT and harness the potential of social and cognitive congruence which inevitably lead to breakthroughs of understanding (Stephens et al, 2016a). In a recent survey of students at Southampton, pelvic anatomy was rated as the most difficult anatomical area to learn besides the brain due to its complex three dimensional arrangements .…”

“…At Southampton, we decided to move our neuroanatomy NPT program from outside to inside the curriculum after two years and witnessed significant levels of knowledge gain in pre and post testing as well as a rise in the overall module evaluation scores. There is little doubt that including a well organised NPT program inside the curriculum in subject specific areas enhances the student learning experience (Brueckner and MacPherson, 2004;Krych et al, 2005;Stephens et al, 2016a).…”

“…This is formed by the proximity in stages of training between student and teacher (Schmidt and Moust, 1985;Lockspeiser et al, 2008). In a previous article we argued that levels of congruence between the teacher and learner are likely to change as the distance is increased along the near-peer teaching spectrum (Stephens et al, 2016a). In particular, we highlighted student's perceptions of criteria such as enjoyment levels, use of teaching time and delivery of content as being especially sensitive to increases in educational distance between tutor and learner.…”