Effect of problem-based learning tutor seniority on medical students’ emotions: an equivalence study

BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of peer learning has been recognized and discussed by many scholars, and implemented in the formal curriculums of medical schools internationally. However, there is a general dearth of studies in measuring the objective outcomes in learning. METHODS: We investigated the objective effect of near-peer learning on tutee’s emotions and its equivalence within the formal curriculum of a clinical reasoning Problem Based Learning session in a Japanese medical school. Fourth-year medical students were assigned to the group tutored by 6(th)-year students or by faculties. The positive activating emotion, positive deactivating emotion, negative activating emotion, negative deactivating emotion, Neutral emotion were measured using the Japanese version of the Medical Emotion Scale (J-MES), and self-efficacy scores were also assessed. We calculated the mean differences of these variables between the faculty and the peer tutor groups and were statistically analyzed the equivalence of these scores. The equivalence margin was defined as a score of 0.4 for J-MES and 10.0 for the self-efficacy score, respectively. RESULTS: Of the 143 eligible participant students, 90 were allocated to the peer tutor group and 53 were allocated to the faculty group. There was no significant difference between the groups. The 95% confidence interval of the mean score difference for positive activating emotions (–0.22 to 0.15), positive deactivating emotions (–0.35 to 0.18), negative activating emotions (–0.20 to 0.22), negative deactivating emotions (–0.20 to 0.23), and self-efficacy (–6.83 to 5.04) were withing the predetermined equivalence margins for emotion scores, meaning that equivalence was confirmed for these variables. CONCLUSIONS: Emotional outcomes were equivalent between near-peer PBL sessions and faculty-led sessions. This comparative measurement of the emotional outcomes in near-peer learning contributes to understanding PBL in the field of medical education.