Integrated Peer-Assisted Learning and Team Teaching for a Graduate Nursing Course in Physiology: Student Perceptions and Outcomes

The study was carried out in first year BSc Nursing students for Physiology curriculum. Not many students interact with the faculty in terms of seeking clarifications or additional information on the topics covered during didactic lectures. We attempted to exploit the advantages of Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) along with Team Teaching (TT) with the objectives of seeing its acceptability, gauging the responses to the experience and measuring the impact, if any, on summative assessment scores.

The batch of 40 students was divided into 08 groups of 05 students each. Eight topics were selected for the PAL sessions from the Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Renal and Nerve-Muscle Physiology systems. Each session was moderated by 04 faculty members. Afeedback of the experience was taken, both in their role as a teacher and as students followed by a summative assessment.

More than 90% of the students found PAL-TT enjoyable, generated interest in them to read in depth of a topic and led to an increase in their knowledge and confidence. 85–90% of the students found PAL-TT more interesting than lectures and better prepared for exams. 90% of the students felt that the best part of PAL-TT was that peers explained the topic at their level of understanding which made the learning easier. 60% of the students suggested that topics should be discussed with more clinical examples and more time should be given for discussions. Summative exam scores were higher in the present batch, however, not statistically significant.

The present study demonstrates the feasibility of using techniques like PAL and TT in combination in health profession education for imparting training in basic sciences. It highlights the general acceptability of such methods among students and also suggests that such interventions may lead to improved student performance. The study also suggests that not all fresh entrants to nursing school appear comfortable with self-directed learning and many seem to prefer didactic lectures by faculty. Whether this preference changes as these students’ progress through their training would make for an interesting area of research.