Peer Teaching Does Not Influence Performance in an Interprofessional Anatomy Course
Authors: McNulty Margaret A 
Published: June 2021

Introduction

Many institutions use peer teaching during dissection‐based anatomy courses. This system has been shown to improve collaboration between students and reduce burdens on educators in laboratory sessions. However, there is conflicting evidence as to whether peer teaching differentially influences student performance on assessments. In addition, in the present study, students indicated their dislike for peer teaching on course evaluations, including that it affected their performance on exams (i.e. they performed worse on questions with tagged structures that were peer taught to them vs. they dissected themselves). Therefore, the aim of the current study was to evaluate whether peer teaching influences allied health student performance in an interprofessional anatomy course.

Methods

A dissection‐based interprofessional anatomy course was developed that allowed three allied health student populations, occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), and physician assistant (PA) to learn gross anatomy as a single cohort. Students (n=126) were assigned to cadavers in groups of six, and each cadaveric group was split into two dissection groups (A & B). Approximately one OT, PT, & PA student was assigned to each dissection group. A peer teaching system was employed, where half of the class (e.g. Group A) would dissect in a laboratory session, then would teach Group B in the following session. Group B would complete the next day's dissection and subsequently teach Group A, and so on. One student from each dissection group was assigned to lead the peer‐teaching session. This course allowed development of interprofessional education opportunities that took advantage of this peer‐teaching system, where students could lead peer‐teaching sessions covering material that was more applicable to their future profession (e.g. OT students led the peer teaching session on the hand; PA students led the heart peer teaching session; PT students led the shoulder session). For analyses, practical exam questions that covered material dissected by Group A and Group B, as well by each peer teaching leader, were identified. Performance on these questions by each student group was evaluated using Mann‐Whitney U tests.

Results

No significant difference was found in performance on questions students dissected themselves vs. those that tested material peer‐taught to them (p>0.05 for both groups). To identify whether peer‐teaching had more influence on weaker students, the same analysis was repeated on data only from the students who performed in the bottom 25% of the class: there was no significant difference in Group A (p=0.563), but Group B performed significantly better (p=0.017) on questions peer‐taught to them rather than questions they dissected themselves. Lastly, no significant improvement was found in student performance on questions related to material they taught as a peer‐teaching leader (p>0.05 for all).

Conclusions

These data indicate peer teaching does not substantially affect allied health student performance in a gross anatomy course. Therefore, the peer teaching method as described provides an opportunity to deliver additional interprofessional education activities within this course for future student cohorts without influencing student performance on course assessments.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.