The COVID-19 pandemic has represented an unprecedented challenge to medical educators and medical students alike. The shift to online/distance learning during the early phases of the pandemic meant that there was a significant loss of face-to-face clinical learning opportunities for early years medical students. We identified an opportunity to deliver a structured, weekly virtual teaching programme aimed specifically at improving students’ preparedness for the examination utilising a near-peer learning model. To our knowledge, this is the first near-peer mixed-modality clinical teaching programme described and evaluated. We have shown that this model is effective not only in improving students’ knowledge (Table 2), but also improving their confidence going into the real-world examination (Table 3). Moreover, highly positive feedback was received from the third year near-peer tutors, identifying significant improvement in their confidence in delivering such teaching (Table 4) (17).
Near-peer teaching is not new to medical education. This teaching model leverages the principles of cognitive and social congruence between the student and near-peer teacher. Cognitive congruence refers to the similar knowledge base shared by near-peer tutors with their tutees, resulting in tutors understanding the likely gaps in their knowledge/skills and being able to deliver the content at an appropriate level (10,18). By comparison, social congruence occurs due to the common or similar social role shared by tutor and tutee (10). The social and cognitive congruence between near-peer tutors and tutees fosters a pleasant, serene and motivational work environment (6, 19, 13). It allows for supportive learning with ease in understanding concepts, tutees feeling able to ask for clarification when required, as well as providing constructive feedback to the tutor (19). Near-peer education has been shown to improve students’ motivation for study, problem-solving, organisational and time management skills (14). These skills are said to be less well addressed by senior-led teaching as faculty are separated from tutees in terms of both experience and relatability. Conversely, near-peer-educators recall their examination experiences and guide their tutees with respect to the specifics of the examination and the preparation required. The near-peer tutors, based on personal experiences, are therefore able to segregate essential and trivial information, hence imparting specific knowledge to their tutees (10, 15). This concept is underpinned by work by Ten Cate et al. and Whitman et al. who suggest that peer-educators have a ‘conscious competence’ of a recently completed examination as compared to senior faculty who possess an ‘unconscious competence’, resulting in them being less skilled in providing highly specific advice and conveying concepts which novices struggle to understand (15, 16, 20).
Interestingly, our results indicate that the overall academic performance and confidence of the tutees increased throughout the programme while there was no significant change observed in their anxiety and the perception of their performance in an ISCE. It has been shown previously that confidence and anxiety are unrelated to a student’s eventual examination performance (7). However, others have shown that in the context of clinical examinations, practice in the form of formative assessments improves examination outcomes (8). Anxiety is conventionally divided into ‘trait’ and ‘state’ forms. State anxiety is defined as the temporary reaction to an adverse event while trait anxiety is a more perpetual prolonged form of anxiety associated with one’s personality. We could hypothesise that students in our study are experiencing trait anxiety due to the continuous barrage of medical education provided to them coupled with the overbearing constant worry of approaching ISCEs and other examinations (9).
The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that a small degree of state anxiety enhances performance. However, greater anxiety/stress levels would be more likely to adversely affect student performance in an ISCE (21). The participants in this study demonstrated an improvement in knowledge as well as confidence. Therefore, their anxiety appears to be of a ‘trait’ type given the unchanged nature of anxiety levels despite objective improvement in preparedness. This might be a result of the continuous academic pressures associated with medical school, the wider societal uncertainties associated with the pandemic, or indeed an amalgamation of factors.
Tutors’ perceptions
Medicine in general relies on a hierarchical transfer of knowledge (10, 18, 15, 20). This consistent transfer requires competent professionals that are willing and have the skills, capacity, and motivation to teach their juniors. Our study adds to the body of literature suggesting that tutors who have just experienced examinations are the most valuable for junior students, in certain contexts. This value arises from relatability as well as a first-hand experience of the upcoming examination providing ease of communication and cognitive congruence (22).
In order to successfully teach a topic, a tutor must have sufficient depth of understanding for the intended session. Tutors therefore need to prepare adequately to be able to support juniors through their learning journey. This involves in-depth content preparation and planning of delivery method in order to convey the information in an understandable manner, as well as being able to answer any questions posed by the tutee (15).
Our cohort of tutors found that their confidence in teaching ISCEs online improved through the duration of the course. Furthermore, they felt that their confidence in teaching ISCEs in-person increased because of participating in this virtual programme. Sawyer et al. suggest that teaching improves grades in the tutors’ own coursework (23). Such analyses are beyond the scope of the present study, but Whitman et al. similarly suggest that ‘to teach is to learn twice’ which links with our postulation that tutors gain an academic advantage through the process of imparting knowledge to their juniors (16). Thus, our near-peer teaching programme is of benefit not only to the tutees, but to the tutors as well.
Limitations
This study has several limitations. Firstly, our analysis method of using bi-weekly surveys targeting similar domains may have induced an element of ‘feedback fatigue’ among participants, potentially skewing responses in some way (11).
There is also potential for heterogeneity in the experience of tutees depending on which tutor was facilitating their one-to-two sessions. This might relate to differing personalities, teaching styles and/or delivery of content by individual tutors that is beyond our control.
This was a single-centre study with a relatively small cohort (tutees: n = 72; tutors: n = 36). Hence, data might not be able to be generalised. Moreover, 77.8% of our tutee cohort were female, thus the levels of anxiety seen in our study might be different in a more balanced group, given known gender-specific differences in levels of test anxiety (24).