Analysis of the Quality, Themes, and Reliability of Faculty vs. Student Feedback Following Student Group Presentations in a Medical School Curriculum

Abstract

Giving & receiving feedback is a cornerstone of medical education. To practice these skills, first year medical students evaluated small group clinical case presentations given by peers. Faculty also evaluated the presentations. The evaluation rubric included descriptive statements, rating scales, & a comment section. The goals of the study were to compare faculty & peer evaluations & to determine if male & female students evaluated peers differently. We hypothesized that peers would give higher scores & fewer constructive comments than faculty & that we would see a difference in feedback based on sex. To analyze peer & faculty feedback, >3,400 comments were sorted into themes under six domains. Peer & faculty feedback themes were similar, focusing on presentation skills & content. Most peer feedback was positive (76%), while faculty provided more constructive narrative feedback (74%). Numeric peer ratings were significantly higher than faculty ratingsfor all domains (p<0.05). Contrary to our hypothesis, there were no differences in themes or numeric ratings between male & female peer evaluators. However, females were more likely to leave comments (62% vs. 55%), but, males were more likely to leave constructively critical comments. Overall, feedback themes were similar among students & faculty, peer numeric ratings were significantly higher, & the percentage of constructive feedback from faculty was greater.