Abstract
This scoping review presents an overview of cognitive and social congruence in peer assisted learning (PAL), as the positive effects of PAL have been shown to rely on these critical factors. The scoping review followed the guidelines of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) statement. Databases were systematically searched for articles that focus on PAL and cognitive and social congruence. Participants of the studies included were medical, health science, polytechnic, law and paramedic students. Studies that assessed cognitive and social congruence by questionnaires with a 5-point Likert scale were regarded for meta-analytic pooling. Sixteen of 786 identified articles were included in the review, whereof 9 studies were considered for meta-analytic pooling. The meta-analytic pooling showed that tutees tend to see their student tutors as cognitively (Mweighted = 3.84; range of Mweighted = 2.69–4.56) and socially congruent (Mweighted = 3.95; range of Mweighted = 2.33–4.57). Further, characteristics of student tutors are summarized. This scoping review presents an overview and operationalization of cognitive and social congruence in PAL. Based on the presented meta-analytic pooling, cognitive and social congruence were found to represent relevant key factors in the PAL context. Thus, this theoretical background should be acknowledged as a core concept for tutorials within the medical curriculum.
Highlights
Over the past decades, the concept of peer-assisted learning (PAL) has firmly established itself in the field of medical curricula [1,2,3,4]
Social congruence showed the highest variance with 60.5% of difference between the student tutors followed by cognitive congruence with 56.1% variance that differed between student tutors
Variance with 0.1% of difference was found between the semesters. These results indicate that cognitive and social congruence varies between student tutors but not between semesters
Summary
The concept of peer-assisted learning (PAL) has firmly established itself in the field of medical curricula [1,2,3,4]. Peer-assisted learning has a long tradition in the teaching of students [6] and was used in numerous courses of study such as health sciences or law [7, 8]. Peer-assisted learning, further, plays a relevant role in the medical training [9,10,11] and is one of the most valuable teaching methods in the undergraduate medical education because all persons involved benefit from this learning concept [12].
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