Students Becoming the Teacher: Questioning the Value of Peer-Taught Lectures on Exam Performance

Peer teaching, i.e. when students teach students, has been shown by literature, from various sources and levels of education, to be an effective educational tool. In anatomical sciences education, peer-teaching in the gross anatomy laboratory has become the norm due to reduction in curricular hours and limitations associated with cadaver dissection laboratory access. While studies in the laboratory have shown that peer teaching can lead to increased student performance on examinations overall, its effect on the performance of the peer teachers, the learners, and compared to instructor taught content, remain to be elucidated. The aim of this COMIRB exempt (#15-042), retrospective study was to assess the educational impact of peer teaching on learning outcomes of the peer teachers themselves and their peer students. Further, the assessment outcomes between the peer-taught versus instructor-taught contents were compared to determine the educational efficacy of peer teaching. During fall semesters of 2014–201...