Weekly near-peer tutoring sessions improve students’ performance on basic medical sciences and USMLE Step1 examinations

Abstract

Purpose

This study examined the relationship between attendance at weekly near-peer tutoring (NPT) sessions offered in the second year of medical school and academic performance on basic science and USMLE Step 1 examinations.

Methods

Twenty-four weekly NPT sessions were delivered across all modules in the second year of medical school. Attendance of the sessions was recorded and students were divided into three groups: high (16–24 sessions), moderate (7–15 sessions), and low-no (0–6 sessions) attendance groups. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to determine the relationship between students’ frequency of attendance and their performance on overall basic sciences, two NBME CBSEs, and USMLE Step 1 examinations. Students’ academic performance was also analyzed using ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test (p < 0.05) to compare differences between the three groups.

Results

Pearson correlation analyses revealed that attending peer tutoring sessions was significantly correlated with students’ performance in overall basic sciences, CBSE mid-year, CBSE final, and USMLE Step 1 examinations. The high attendance groups significantly outperformed the low-no attendance groups on overall basic sciences (p = 0.007), CBSE mid-year (p < 0.001), CBSE final (p < 0.018), and USMLE Step 1 (p = 0.048) examinations.

Conclusions

Attending NPT sessions are significantly correlated with students’ performance on basic sciences and on USMLE Step1 examinations. Attendance of weekly NPT sessions is a valuable experience for M2 students.

Keywords:

• Tutoring
• peer tutoring
• near-peer tutoring
• USMLE step 1

Ethical approval

The collection of this data was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of South Carolina.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Glossary

Near-peer teaching: Is the phenomenon whereby senior trainees (one or more years senior in training on the same level of the medical education spectrum) teach more junior trainees1

Bulte C, Betts A, Garner K, Durning S. 2007. Student teaching: views of student near-peer teachers and learners. Med Teach. 29 (6): 583–590.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammed K. Khalil

Mohammed Khalil, DVM, MSEd, PhD, is a Clinical Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, USA with interests in students’ academic support, integration of technology into medical education, and curriculum integration.