The Effect of Experienced vs. Novice Problem-Based Learning Facilitators on Student Outcomes

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of experienced vs. novice problem-based learning facilitators on evaluative measures on first-year physician assistant (PA) students. Methods: Retrospective data from 47 students from the Chatham University PA class of 2007 were collected for this study. Student test scores for each of six multiple-choice question (MCQ) exams and each of six patient management problem (PMP) exams were analyzed to determine facilitator effect. Differences among all six individual facilitators and also between the three experienced and three novice facilitators were analyzed. Results: Significant differences were noted in deviation from mean MCQ and PMP scores (p = 0.0002 and p =0.01, respectively) and rankings (p = 0.002 and p = 0.006, respectively) between students having experienced facilitators and those having novice facilitators. There was a significant difference between students with novice facilitators and student with experienced facilitators in the number having their worst MCQ scores (p = 0.001). When the data from the experienced facilitator with the highest-scoring students and the novice facilitator with the lowest-scoring students were eliminated, there was no significant difference among the remaining 4 facilitators. Conclusions: These results suggest that students of novice facilitators can score as well as students of experienced facilitators, but also that a facilitator can negatively affect the scores of his or her students. PA programs using problem-based learning with multiple facilitators should be collecting and tracking student outcome measures by facilitator so that extra attention can be given to facilitators whose students perform poorly.