Medical student perceptions of near peer teaching within an histology course at the University of Sassari, Italy

Sotgiu, Maria Alessandra, Bandiera, Pasquale, Mazzarello, Vittorio, Saderi, Laura, Montella, Andrea and Moxham, Bernard John 2022. Medical student perceptions of near peer teaching within an histology course at the University of Sassari, Italy. Education Sciences 12 (8) , e527. 10.3390/educsci12080527

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Abstract

Near peer teaching (NPT) is becoming recognized as a valuable instrument with advantages for both students and teachers. Despite the recognized benefits, NPT programmes are not usually embedded within university healthcare curricula and, to our knowledge, there have been few studies assessing medical students’ attitudes towards NPT for histology courses. Our study is the first that assess medical students’ perceptions concerning the value of NPT for a course in the human organ histology component of anatomy. A NPT programme was provided for second-year medical students and delivered during laboratory sessions for microscopic anatomy. The NPT tutors were recruited from third-, fourth- or fifth-year medical students. The medical tutees completed a questionnaire to assess their attitudes towards NPT. The initial hypothesis tested was that students preferred to be taught by their professional teachers and not by NPT tutors. A total of 113 students completed the questionnaire (46% response rate). Of these, 70% of respondents rated the support of the NPT tutors as being excellent or good. Furthermore, 60% of respondents agreed that the NPT programme should be introduced officially into the medical curriculum. The findings are not consistent with our initial hypothesis, and suggest that NPT could be a valuable instrument for the understanding of histological concepts.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	MDPI
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 August 2022
Date of Acceptance:	27 July 2022
Last Modified:	14 May 2023 16:22
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/151727

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