Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: Mar 9, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 9, 2022 - May 4, 2022
Date Accepted: May 9, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Evaluation of Online Near-peer Teaching for Penultimate-Year Objective Structured Clinical Examinations in the COVID-19 Era: A Longitudinal Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The benefits of near-peer teaching are well-established in several aspects of undergraduate medical education including preparing students for Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in paradigm shift to predominantly online teaching.
Objective:
Thus, the present study aims to deliver and evaluate a weekly near-peer online OSCE teaching programme for fourth year students taught by final year students at Manchester Medical School.
Methods:
Programme development involved compiling of a list of salient topics and seeking senior faculty approval. Teachers and students were recruited on Facebook. 22 sessions and 42 talks were attended by 72 students over a 3-month period. Data collection involved anonymous weekly questionnaire’s and two separate anonymous student and teacher post-course questionnaires including both quantitative and qualitative data.
Results:
On a scale of 1-10, students rated the quality of the programme highly (M = 9.30, SD = 1.15) and felt the sessions were highly useful in guiding their revision (M = 8.95, SD = 0.94). This saw a significant increase in perceived confidence ratings post-delivery of the programme (P <.00001). Teachers felt the programme helped them better understand and retain (M = 9.36, SD = 0.81) the subject material taught and develop skills to become an effective clinical teacher (M = 9.27, SD = 0.79).
Conclusions:
This is the first study demonstrating the efficacy of a near-peer OSCE teaching programme delivered exclusively online. This provides an exemplar framework of how similar programmes should be encouraged given their logistical viability and efficacy in supplementing the undergraduate curriculum.
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