Non‐Graded Peer Teaching in the Gross Anatomy Lab: Student Participation and its Efficacy in Improving Performance on Written Examinations
Authors: Ryder Alexander H. , Gray Andrew L. , Rhodes Diana CJ. 
Published: June 2021

Gross anatomy dissection laboratory is a clinically relevant, hands‐on learning opportunity for first year medical students, where active, peer‐based learning is able to flourish. To maximize the effectiveness of this process, for each weekly Gross Anatomy lab, each student in a lab group was assigned an “individual expert assignment” (IEA) on a specific topic that they were to prepare before lab and then present to their group during the lab session. In this study, we examined student participation in this non‐graded activity and whether preparing and presenting the IEA affected student performance on questions related to the IEA topic on written, summative examinations.

In order to determine participation in this non‐graded activity, at the beginning of each Gross Anatomy lab session, each student was asked discretely to rate, on a scale of 0 – 2, in 0.5 increments, how well they had prepared their IEA. Similarly, at the end of lab, each student was asked to rate how well they presented their topic to their group. These self‐reported responses were tabulated for each lab session and assessed in relation to the timing of major exams in other courses. In order to determine the efficacy of this activity, written, end‐of‐unit exam questions were linked to the pertinent IEA, and scores on these questions were compared between students who were assigned that IEA, versus students not assigned that IEA. This analysis was further refined by correlating performance on relevant exam questions with the self‐reported level of preparation and presentation of the IEA. This study was determined to be exempt by the PNWU IRB (#2017‐019).

Although students received no grade for participation in this activity, on lab days where there were no major exams in other classes, the mean (± SD) student self‐reported preparation and presentation scores were 1.40 ± 0.10 and 1.36 ± 0.06 respectively. For labs occurring on days where students had examinations in other courses, these scores dropped significantly to 0.85 ± 0.39 and 0.92 ± 0.28 respectively (p<0.05).

For each specific IEA, questions on the written, end‐of‐unit exam were identified that were related to the IEA. There was no significant difference in performance on these questions between students assigned the IEA and those not assigned that specific IEA (mean of 81.6% versus 79.2%, respectively). However, the performance of students who self‐reported being well‐prepared for their IEA (85.5% ± 15.2%) or doing a good job of presenting the topic to their lab partners (85.4% ± 17.0%) was significantly better on the related written exam questions compared to the performance of students who were not assigned that specific IEA (79.2% ± 11.9%) (p<0.05). Participation in this activity may have had academic benefits for the dissection group as a whole, since groups in the upper quartile of the mean self‐reported preparation and presentation scores per student tended to have higher overall examination scores (80.9% ± 11.5%) than did groups in the lower quartile (75.9% ± 14.1%) (p=0.053).

In conclusion, even though these IEAs in the Gross Anatomy lab were not graded, the majority of students typically completed this task, except on laboratory days where there were exam in other courses. These findings also suggest that the active learning that accompanies preparation and presentation of a specific topic during Gross Anatomy lab may positively impact performance on related questions during written, end‐of‐unit examinations.

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This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.