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Weekly near-peer tutoring sessions improve students' performance on basic medical sciences and USMLE Step1
1Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, Greenville, SC, USA.
Purpose:
This study examined the relationship between attendance at weekly near-peer tutoring (NPT) sessions offered in the second year of medical school and academic performance on basic science and USMLE Step 1 examinations.
Methods:
Twenty-four weekly NPT sessions were delivered across all modules in the second year of medical school. Attendance of the sessions was recorded and students were divided into three groups: high (16-24 sessions), moderate (7-15 sessions), and low-no (0-6 sessions) attendance groups. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to determine the relationship between students' frequency of attendance and their performance on overall basic sciences, two NBME CBSEs, and USMLE Step 1 examinations. Students' academic performance was also analyzed using ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test (p < 0.05) to compare differences between the three groups.
Results:
Pearson correlation analyses revealed that attending peer tutoring sessions was significantly correlated with students' performance in overall basic sciences, CBSE mid-year, CBSE final, and USMLE Step 1 examinations. The high attendance groups significantly outperformed the low-no attendance groups on overall basic sciences (p = 0.007), CBSE mid-year (p < 0.001), CBSE final (p < 0.018), and USMLE Step 1 (p = 0.048) examinations.
Conclusions:
Attending NPT sessions are significantly correlated with students' performance on basic sciences and on USMLE Step1 examinations. Attendance of weekly NPT sessions is a valuable experience for M2 students.
