Impact of integration through peer instructed lectures

• Published in: International journal of basic and clinical pharmacology Vol. 6; no. 6; p. 1293
• Main Authors: Bathini, Prapthi Persis, Sen, Sumana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.06.2017
• ISSN: 2319-2003; 2279-0780
• DOI: 10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20172045

Background: Integrated case based lectures are widely used as an effective method of teaching and learning. This method not only integrates all the disciplines in a particular year but also presents them in an effective case based format. Over the years, the students were less enthusiastic about this method. In order to make it more student centred and to actively involve them we have introduced peer case based integrated lectures. Peer assisted learning is a strong educational strategy known to benefit peer tutors and learners. This study evaluates the Knowledge gain of both the methods to see if there is any significant difference.Methods: Students in their 2nd year MBBS who agreed to participate were included in the study. After a series of discussions with the curriculum committee, the basic and clinical faculty, topics of public health importance were selected and written case scenarios with a set of relevant questions were formulated. In case based integrated lectures for tuberculosis, lectures were taken by faculty of the pertaining disciplines. In the peer case based integrated lectures on HIV, the same were taken by the students. A pre-test and post test was conducted after each session to know if there is a significant difference in knowledge gain in the two formats.Results: For the case based and peer led case based lectures, the mean student attendance was 90% and 86%. In the pre-test of integrated group on tuberculosis the mean score was 9.96 with standard deviation of 2.38. The post-test of the same group, the mean knowledge score was 13.63 with standard deviation of 2.20. There was significant improvement in knowledge with the case based integrated lectures of 3.67. The p value (0.0001) for this intervention is extremely significant. The post-test marks obtained for integrated and peer integrated group were 13.63±2.20 and 15.86±2.39 respectively. The mean increase in knowledge after peer case based integrated group was 6.1 when compared to increase in knowledge after case based integrated group which was 3.67.Conclusions: Integrated case base lectures is an effective teaching learning tool which can be further made student centric by involving students as peer teachers. Peer teaching is a valuable methodology to engage learners as teachers to improve their knowledge and communication skills as well creating an environment in which the peer audience will likely actively discuss and exchange ideas. Peer assisted learning is need of time to increase critical reasoning skills of medical students.