Role of Peer‐Teaching in Graduate Anatomical Sciences Education

Abstract

Educational effectiveness of peer‐teaching in K12 through undergraduate education has been well documented. Peer‐teaching activities have been shown to increase active learning engagement and long‐term retention of learned material. It is not surprising that more and more professional health sciences programs are implementing problem‐based learning and team‐based learning in their curricula of which peer‐teaching is an essential component. While the integration of peer‐teaching activities are widely utilized in medical education, reports on the use and effectiveness of peer‐teaching are lacking from the graduate (PhD and Master's) programs in the field of health sciences. The objectives of the study were to; 1) quantify the educational value of peer‐teaching activities in an anatomical sciences graduate program and; 2) assess graduate students’ perceived value of peer‐teaching in their learning and professional development. Over the two year period, first year graduate students enrolled in an introductory embryology course were randomized into groups of three and each group was assigned to teach one embryology concept to their classmates. To assess the value of the peer‐teaching exercise, each group members’ exam performance on the topic they taught were compared against topics they did not teach. Exam scores of the students on the peer‐taught topics were also compared with the scores on the instructor taught topics to assess whether being taught by the student peers had positive or negative effect on student learning. Students’ evaluations of the embryology course were also analyzed to assess students’ perception of the peer‐teaching project. The results reveal that students performed significantly better on the embryology topics that they taught to the class and that they retained the information better approximately one year after completion of the course. Students’ exam performances on the content taught by their peers vs. the instructor did not show significant differences. Analyses of students’ evaluation of the embryology course revealed that the teaching project was rated highly and mentioned as the most effective learning experience in the course. Students also remarked that the formal peer‐teaching project enhanced their level of confidence and ability to communicate well. Interestingly, the most commonly mentioned disadvantage about the teaching project was that students felt that they did not learn the content taught by their peers as well. In conclusion, the current findings indicate that peerteaching exercises implemented in a graduate curriculum has numerous positive impacts in student engagement, learning, long‐term retention and professional development with little to no evidence of negative impact despite students’ perception that they may not learn as much from their peers.Support or Funding InformationMaster of Science Program in Modern Human Anatomy, University of Colorado School of Medicine