Abstract
Near-peer mentoring is a formal relationship in which more qualified students guide immediate junior students. It is an innovative approach to increase students' engagement from varied backgrounds and cultures in the health profession. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate and compare the effectiveness of near-peer tutoring and faculty/expert teaching in health science undergraduates on knowledge and skill outcome. The review question considered was "how effective is near-peer tutor compare to faculty/expert teaching for undergraduate health science students?" A comprehensive systematic search was undertaken in PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Cochrane and screened initially in Rayyan software (Qatar Computing Research Institute, Qatar). Identified articles were screened independently for eligibility by two reviewers and extracted the data. Data were analyzed using standardized mean difference with Review manager version 5.5 (Cochrane Campbell Collaboration). Sixteen studies were analyzed. Heterogeneity (I2) among studies was high in knowledge and skill scores. Heterogeneity was reduced by 30-40% after sensitivity analysis. No difference in knowledge and skill score was found among the near-peer and expert teaching groups. Students had a satisfactory learning experience with near-peer tutors except for some issues related to teaching proficiency in near-peers. Near-peer teaching was found to be as effective as faculty/expert teaching. Students were more comfortable with near-peers. As mentioned by students, some challenges were differences in teaching skills and level of knowledge among near-peers.
Highlights
BackgroundNear-peer teaching is becoming increasingly popular in medical education [1,2]
The review question considered was "how effective is a near-peer tutor compared to faculty/expert teaching for undergraduate health science students regarding improvement in knowledge, skill, and satisfaction?" Other questions that we tried to address by this review were (1) what are the reported benefits of near-peer tutoring? (2) What are the reported challenges in utilizing near-peer tutoring as a formal teaching-learning (T-L) strategy in medical education
The study done by Blank et al favored the near-peer with standardized mean difference (SMD) of 6.73 (4.8-8.66) [23]
Summary
Near-peer teaching is becoming increasingly popular in medical education [1,2]. It is a voluntary collaboration between colleagues of almost similar rank, one or more years senior to another, and common academic interests. The immediate senior may facilitate discussions, provide personal support and feedback, while the senior clinician/faculty may oversee the mentoring process [1]. Near-peer teaching is a formal relationship in which a more qualified student provides guidance and support to another student [2]. We echo with an author that being close to the new learner's social, professional, age level, the near-peer mentor may influence the cognitive and psychomotor learning of the new learner in a better manner [2]. Provide an explicit statement of the objective(s) or question(s) the review addresses
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