Peer Feedback on Collaborative Learning Activities in Veterinary Education

Interprofessional clinical reasoning education

Clinical reasoning is considered one of the most important competencies but is not included in most healthcare curricula. The number and diversity of patient encounters are the decisive factors in the development of clinical reasoning competence. Physical real patient encounters are considered optimal, but virtual patient cases also promote clinical reasoning. A high-volume, low-fidelity virtual patient library thus can support clinical reasoning training in a safe environment and can be tailored to the needs of learners from different health care professions. It may also stimulate interprofessional understanding and team shared decisions. Implementation will be challenged by tradition, the lack of educator competence and prior experience as well as the high-density curricula at medical and veterinary schools and will need explicit address from curriculum managers and education leads.

Do peer-based short-form educational videos created by nursing students improve youths' knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases? A quasi-experimental study

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remains high worldwide in today's society, especially among young people. Youth education on STDs could help to reduce the prevalence of the condition in society and prevent new cases.

AIM

The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of peer-based short-form educational videos on youths' knowledge of STDs.

METHODS

This quasi-experimental study was conducted in Turkey. The sample consisted of 121 students divided into experimental and control groups. Pre- and post-test control group quasi-experimental research design was employed in this study during the spring semester of the academic year 2021-2022. Peer-based short-form educational videos created by nursing students were used as an intervention. The survey form and Sexually Transmitted Disease Knowledge Questionnaire were used to collect data.

RESULTS

Participants with parental responsibilities and had previous STD experience had higher knowledge score than the other subgroups. There was a significant main effect of peer-based short-form educational video on participants overall knowledge score of STDs. Additionally, the effect of intervention continued at 12-week follow-up measurement.

CONCLUSION

Peer-based short-form educational videos increase young people's knowledge of STD, and the impact of the intervention continued at 12-week follow up.

Teacher feedback-based collaborative testing improves students' knowledge gaps of parasitology

Collaborative testing has been demonstrated the ability to improve students' performance, enhance students' learning, and aid in knowledge retention in many different courses. However, this examination mode lacks the process of teacher feedback. Herein, a short teacher feedback from was added immediately after the collaborative testing to improve the students' performance. A parasitology class of 121 undergraduates was randomized into two groups: group A and group B. Collaborative testing was carried out at the end of theoretical teaching. During the test, students would first answer questions as individuals for 20 minutes. Then, students from group A answered the same questions in groups (5 students in each group) for 20 minutes, while the group-testing duration was only 15 minutes in group B. Immediately after the group testing, teachers conducted a 5-minute feedback about the morphology identification according to the analysis of the answers by group B. Four weeks later, a final test was conducted in an individual test. The total scores and scores for each examination content were analyzed. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the final exam scores between both groups (t = -1.278, P = 0.204). However, the morphological and diagnostic test results of the final examination in group B were significantly higher than those of the midterm examination, while there was no significant change in group A (t = 4.333, P = 0.051). The results confirmed that the teacher feedback after the collaborative testing can effectively make up for the students' knowledge gaps.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study found that collaborative group testing is helpful for teachers to grasp students' knowledge gaps more easily and the teacher feedback after the collaborative group testing can effectively make up for the knowledge gaps of students.

Environment in Veterinary Education

Environmental concerns have become priority issues over the last third of the 20th century. The EU's common agricultural policy (CAP) has gone from rules which supported the farming sector after years of famine to being oriented towards looking at environmental aspects. Therefore, it has evolved not only to react to a changing market and consumer demands but also to respond to climate change and the need for sustainable development. Environmental education is an important pillar for responding and adapting to climate change. The CAP policies oriented towards optimizing the use of natural resources, residue management, antimicrobial use reduction, the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and animal welfare need linked educational programs. In this context, veterinarians, being experts in animal production, welfare, and food safety and its technology and public health under the One Health concept, are scarcely informed in environmental aspects, which would help them to understand and face the consequences of climate change in the rural world. Future veterinarians must be able to quantify the effects of animal production on the environment, optimizing the use of natural resources, minimizing GHG emissions, and managing the risks associated with climate change by using different analysis tools that need to be included in their learning programs.

Peer assessment of professionalism in undergraduate medical education

BACKGROUND

Fostering professional behaviour has become increasingly important in medical education and non-traditional approaches to assessment of professionalism may offer a more holistic representation of students' professional behaviour development. Emerging evidence suggests peer assessment may offer potential as an alternative method of professionalism assessment. We introduced peer assessment of professionalism in pre-clerkship phases of undergraduate medical education curriculum at our institution and evaluated suitability of adopting a professional behaviour scale for longitudinal tracking of student development, and student comfort and acceptance of peer assessment.

METHODS

Peer assessment was introduced using a validated professional behaviours scale. Students conducted repeated, longitudinal assessments of their peers from small-group, clinical skills learning activities. An electronic assessment system was used to collect peer assessments, collate and provide reports to students. Student opinions of peer assessment were initially surveyed before introducing the process, confirmatory analyses were conducted of the adopted scale, and students were surveyed to explore satisfaction with the peer assessment process.

RESULTS

Students across all phases of the curriculum were initially supportive of anonymous peer assessment using small-group learning sessions. Peer scores showed improvement over time, however the magnitude of increase was limited by ceiling effects attributed to the adopted scale. Students agreed that the professional behaviours scale was easy to use and understand, however a majority disagreed that peer assessment improved their understanding of professionalism or was a useful learning experience.

CONCLUSIONS

Peer assessment of professional behaviours does expose students to the process of assessing one's peers, however the value of such processes at early stages of medical education may not be fully recognized nor appreciated by students. Electronic means for administering peer assessment is feasible for collecting and reporting peer feedback. Improvement in peer assessed scores was observed over time, however student opinions of the educational value were mixed and indeterminate.