Published in

Sciedu Press, International Journal of Higher Education, 4(3)

DOI: 10.5430/ijhe.v3n4p142

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Can Near-Peer Teaching Improve Academic Performance?

Journal article published in 2014 by Brett Williams ORCID, James Fowler
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Near peer teaching is becoming increasingly popular within healthcare education. The experiences and effects of near-peer teaching upon the near-peer teachers’ academic performance are poorly understood. In order to address this, the objective of this study was to examine whether a near-peer teaching program improved the overall clinical unit scores of undergraduate paramedic near-peer teachers. Students in their final year of an undergraduate paramedic, or nursing/paramedic degree were given the opportunity to volunteer as near-peer teachers for a first year clinical skills unit. The overall unit scores in a final year clinical unit of 74 students involved in the near-peer teaching program were compared with a randomly selected sample not involved. 74 students participated in this study as near-peer teachers between 2011-2013 (n=23 in 2011, n=18 in 2012, n=33 in 2013). In each year, the median clinical unit grade of participating near-peer teachers was significantly higher than that of the students not involved in the near-peer teaching program when examined using a Mann-Whitney U Test (71 vs 67, p=0.006 in 2011; 76 vs 72, p=0.007 in 2012; 75 vs 71, p=0.004 in 2013). This study has demonstrated that participation in a near-peer teaching program can result in improved overall clinical unit grades for undergraduate paramedic near-peer teachers. This study has added objective data to the variety of subjective information evaluating the effects of near-peer teaching upon the teachers themselves.