Faculty Members versus Teaching Assistants as Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Facilitators: Medical Students’ Perception

Abstract

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy that depends on the principle of using real life problems as a trigger for the acquisition and integration of new knowledge through the problem-solving skills and experiences. The PBL allows medical students to develop important skills and attributes. Among the pillars of successful PBL implementation is the ‘class tutor’. The PBL tutor is known as the guide or mentor for the students. Tutors prompt students with metacognitive questions and provide direction without directly telling the student what to look for and where to go for information. The aim of the study was to compare the performance of faculty members and teaching assistants in facilitating PBL sessions from the students' points of view. A comparative, cross-sectional study was conducted on ISNC medical students who attended PBL sessions with both faculty members and teaching assistants in various integrated modules. A questionnaire designed by the researchers and transformed into an online survey (through Google Forms) has been used for data collection. The descriptive statistics have been used and a p-value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. A total of 348 medical students responded to the questionnaire. The data collection tool was based on a questionnaire that was analyzed for its validity and reliability and showed a high validity reflected by KMO and Barlett‘s test of Sphericity with a value of 0.908 (p < 0.000) and high reliability reflected by Cronbach‘s alpha with a value of 0.928. The study participants reported that 63.5% and 79.6% of faculty members and teaching assistants, respectively, had sufficient to high performance, while 36.5% and 20.4% of faculty members and teaching assistants, respectively, had a poor or insufficient performance. No association was found between students’ perception of the facilitation performance of faculty members &teaching assistants and their demographic data. The perception of the medical students of the PBL facilitation skills of teaching assistants was more positive than the skills of faculty members. Teaching assistants are suitable PBL facilitators probably because they have a better understanding of students’ needs than faculty members, being closer to them in age or their recent experience as undergraduate medical students.