A comparison of peer and faculty narrative feedback on medical student oral research presentations.

Tracey A H Taylor,Stephanie M Swanberg

doi:10.5116/ijme.5f64.690b

Abstract

ObjectivesThe purpose of this project was to evaluate and improve the oral presentation assessment component of a required research training curriculum at an undergraduate medical school by analyzing the quantity, quality, and variety of peer and faculty feedback on medical student oral research presentations. MethodsWe conducted a program evaluation of oral presentation assessments during the 2016 and 2017 academic years. Second-year medical students (n=225) provided oral presentations of their research and received narrative feedback from peers and faculty. All comments were inductively coded for themes and Chi-square testing compared faculty and peer feedback differences in quantity, quality, and variety, as well as changes in feedback between the initial and final presentations. Comparative analysis of student PowerPoint presentation files before and after receiving feedback was also conducted. ResultsOver two years, 2,617 peer and 498 faculty comments were collected and categorized into ten themes, with the top three being: presentation skills, visual presentation, and content. Both peers and judges favored providing positive over improvement comments, with peers tending to give richer feedback, but judges more diverse feedback. Nearly all presenters made some change from the initial to final presentations based on feedback. ConclusionsData from this analysis was used to restructure the oral presentation requirement for the students. Both peer and faculty formative feedback can contribute to developing medical student competence in providing feedback and delivering oral presentations. Future studies could assess student perceptions of this assessment to determine its value in developing communication skills.

Highlights

The development of effective communication skills, including providing feedback and giving oral presentations, tends to be challenging for students to master
Ten themes emerged which were lettered from A-to-I and NM (“No Meat”: comments that did not contain substantial content such as “good job” and “great presentation.”)
Our program evaluation analysis led to several changes in the oral presentation component of the courses from 2016 to 2017 including contributing to the development of a new rubric based on themes identified, revising the requirements for peer feedback to more evenly distribute comments across the student finalists, and encouraging judges to provide narrative feedback in 2017

Summary

Introduction

The development of effective communication skills, including providing feedback and giving oral presentations, tends to be challenging for students to master. Many health professions education accreditation bodies worldwide require students to be involved in research and to receive timely formative feedback. Research curricula provide an ideal opportunity for students to practice oral presentations and accrediting bodies in the United States and Canada, including medicine, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and nutrition, require or encourage student involvement in research (Table 1).[1,2,3,4,5] accreditation standards for medicine, physical therapy, and occupational therapy education programs in the United States and Canada require that students receive formative feedback.

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