Assessing Peer Teaching Completeness of Medical Students during Reciprocal Peer Teaching

Within medical school curricula, anatomy education has faced a reduction in the course contact hours for gross anatomy, noticeably within the laboratory The Indiana University School of Medicine to combat this have implemented peer teaching with alternate dissections since 2012 Historically this course is an entire semester in duration, however to due COVID-19, the course was truncated into a 10-week course This resulted in a rapid turn around for dissections and peer-teaching by the next day Empirically, peer teaching within the gross anatomy laboratory is beneficial to medical students learning anatomical content Largely, the pedagogy of peer-teaching is assessed as a whole upon completion of the course and through medical students? perceptions However, explicit episodes of peer teaching that occur within this pedagogy have not been examined thoroughly, which is the aim of this study Participants were first-year medical students enrolled in a gross anatomy course at Indiana University School of Medicine, Bloomington campus (IUSM-BL) Participants (n=35) were assigned at the beginning of the course into seven groups by the course director that ranged from (5-6) students each For a given lab two students from each group were dissectors, with one student being responsible for peer-teaching the dissected structures to their group peers at the beginning of their next lab Peer-teaching episodes were allotted 15 minutes at the start of each lab Each episode of peer-teaching across all three blocks of content were recorded via iPad by the course instructors Videos were scored for structures taught per dissection based on the course provided dissection structures to know list per lab Thematic analysis will be used to better understand the types of structures taught compared to those not taught across the course Block one comprised upper limb and thorax (labs = 7, total structures = 565), block two covered lower limbs, abdomen, and pelvis (labs = 7, total structures = 373), and block three covered head and neck (labs = 7, total structures = 331) Peer-teaching times per block averaged (6:21, 10:06, and 8:03 minutes and seconds) for blocks 1,2, and 3 respectively The average number of structures taught during peer-teaching sessions were (22, 32, and 26) for blocks 1,2, and 3 respectively The average relative percent of structures taught per lab per block were (57, 58, and 64 percent) for blocks 1,2, and 3 respectively Across the three blocks the lowest taught labs for completeness were brachial plexus (13 structures taught, 42% completeness), anterior lower limb (24 structures taught, 44% completeness), and the pharynx and larynx (26 structures taught, 51% completeness) for blocks 1,2, and 3 respectively Across all recorded peer teaching episodes, only 59% of the expected gross anatomy structures to know were peer taught by the peer teachers to their group members This study will provide demonstrable evidence for the impact of the completeness of peer teaching anatomical structures during peer-teaching on student lab exam performance Additionally, the types of structures that are neglected or troublesome for students during peer teaching can help better inform us as instructors about how to direct our attention to student learning and understanding in the gross anatomy laboratory