Effectiveness of a short training session for improving pipetting accuracy

The quality of diagnostic tests conducted by the Animal Quarantine Service (AQS) is critical to the safety of national livestock production. In procedures for tests such as polymerase chain reaction and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, measurement of tiny quantities of samples or reagents is quite common. Therefore, many efforts have been made to maintain the quality of micropipette operations, including routine calibration of equipment and training programs for operators. In this study, we developed a pilot training program to analyze the effects of training on pipetting accuracy, i.e., trueness and precision. The program involved a self-instruction A4-sized leaflet describing how to improve pipetting technique. Thirty-three staff members from seven AQS laboratories participated in the program. Each participant repeated sampling of 300 μL of distilled water 10 times before and after reading the leaflet, and the effects of training on the trueness and precision of the pipetting results were analyzed. To determine pipetting trueness, we examined the variation of the delivered volume from the target volume (300 μL) using the proportional odds mixture model. Our data demonstrated that participation in the training program and the level of experience with pipetting significantly improved trueness. Analysis of standard deviations of the ten samplings, as an indicator of precision, also showed that participation in the training program improves pipetting precision. Thus, our data supported the implementation of such simple, quick training sessions to improve pipetting trueness and precision in diagnostic laboratories.