8/12/2019 Using PeerWise to Promote Online Peer Learning Amongst First Year Medical Students

1/1

Using PeerWise to Promote Online Peer Learning

Amongst First Year Medical StudentsJason Walsh and Phil Smith

School of Medicine, Cardiff University

INTRODUCTION

PeerWise is an online resource that allows students to write, share and review

single best answer questions pertinent to their course. Students are awardedvarious electronic badges for writing, answering and discussing questions with their

peers online.

Medical Student knowledge is being increasingly assessed through single best

answer (SBA) questions. Cardiff University School of Medicine has moved towards

having the majority of written examination questions in this format. Therefore,

formative SBA questions are in demand. However, writing questions is an onerous

task. Clinical staff members have neither the time nor the incentives to develop

formative material, focusing their attention on writing questions for high-stakes

summative examinations.

PeerWise puts the onus of formative question writing on students. Resulting in the

rapid creation of a large bank of formative questions. This benefits both staff and

students. Additionally, students will benefit from engaging in the question writing and

review processes.

PeerWise is easily accessible on smart phones, tablets and PCs, and has a socialnetworking aspect, whereby students can discuss and rate each others questions.

This is likely to appeal to medical students.

In this project a PeerWise module was setup. A mandatory teaching session invited

all students in year 1 of Cardiff School of Medicine to register on the module and

practice writing and answering questions. Student activity was subsequently

monitored by two online invigilators.

METHOD

1) A module on PeerWise entitled Year one practice was created, accessible to

every first year medical student at Cardiff using their student number.

2) All year one students were invited to a mandatory teaching session for which

they were told to bring a laptop or electronic device with internet capability.

3) A one hour teaching session with internet access was delivered. During the

session students registered on the PeerWise module on which they were asked

to write questions, then answer and review the questions written by their peers.

Students were told a question appearing on PeerWise may feature in their

summative exam. During the session facilitators circulated offering assistance.

4) Student activity on the module was monitored over the following months.

RESULTS

284 first year students (of 297) registered on the

PeerWise module.

268 answered questions and 142 contributed

questions.

5% of registered students wrote 63% of questions.

Over 2 months 670 questions were generated and

33760 answers were submitted.

Course activity increased exponentially two weeks

preceding written exams and peaked two daysbefore exams.

EXAMPLE QUESTION

CONCLUSIONS

The PeerWise module has been shown to be popular learning resource amongst

first year medical students, particularly preceding the summative examinations.Students are encouraged to write, answer and review questions through peer

feedback, question rating, earning electronic badges and competing for a position

on the leaderboards. This encourages independent and peer learning. In this

PeerWise module a rapidly growing question bank pertinent to the course, has

been created, a valuable resource which can be expanded by future first year

cohorts. The creation of this module has the added benefit of taking the onus of

providing formative material away from staff . This approach could be extended to

all years of the medical school.