On a Need to Know Basis: “Electronic” vs. “Live” Problem-based Learning Tutor Briefings

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of eleven different subject-specialist medical school staff with varying experience levels, of the benefits and drawbacks of adopting an electronic tutor briefing format rather than the traditional face-to-face tutor briefings when used in support of problem-based learning sessions across an eight week module in the second year of the Keele undergraduate medical curriculum. Our aim is also to identify and explore the benefits and interdisciplinary value of adopting or adapting these for the legal education discipline. This study shows that an electronic tutor briefing format is successful in supporting tutors with their teaching but there are still issues in presenting it as a wholesale replacement of the live briefings in its current form and our future work will expand this pilot into the legal education arena to test the validity of our findings in another discipline.