Peer instruction improves performance on quizzes

Peer instruction is a cooperative-learning technique that promotes critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making skills. Benson's think-pair-share and Mazur's peer-instruction techniques are simple cooperative exercises that promote student's participation in class and increase student's interaction with each other and with the instructor in a large classroom. We borrowed concepts from Benson and Mazur and applied these concepts to enhance student involvement during the respiratory component of the medical physiology class. The medical physiology class consisted of 256 first-year medical students. The peer-instruction technique was used for 10 classes. Each class of 50 min was divided into three or four short presentations of 12-20 min. Each presentation was followed by a one-question, multiple-choice quiz on the subject discussed. Questions ranged from simple recall to those testing complex intellectual activities. Students were given 1 min to think and to record their first answer. Subsequently, students were allowed 1 min to discuss their answers with their classmates and possibly correct their first response. The percentage of correct answers increased significantly (P < 0.05) after discussion for both recall and intellectual questions. These data demonstrate that pausing three to four times during a 50-min class to allow discussion of concepts enhanced the students level of understanding and ability to synthesize and integrate material.