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Table 2 Participants’ responses to questions regarding their perceptions of their experiences that related to “Pedagogic support”

From: Peer tutoring in a medical school: perceptions of tutors and tutees

Pedagogic support is provided by teachers in the workplace setting, including mentors, supervisors, role models, as well as sources of informal support.

Tutee responses

Knowledge for tutees was reinforced by the tutorials

For me it was mostly reinforcement of what we were given in lectures and PBLs. We didn’t cover any new material but it brought everything together, they contextualised it in a way that they understood it to approach the exams”.

Tutees felt the tutors were enthusiastic about teaching

“One time the topic we were requesting was AVGs and our tutor actually then brought along whatever they call them, but he was basically like, let’s just take each other’s arterial blood. We each stuck a needle in someone and only one of us actually got any blood out. We had a procedural skills session on cannulation just recently. The next time we will encounter it is in an OSCE station or when you’re a resident. You don’t get to go over it again”.

Tutees found their peer tutors provided appropriate explanations and a clinical relevance to what was being taught, and also gave the necessary time to the tutees.

“So it's really good to have the peer tutors - it is clinically based but also adding in why you do certain things. Our tutors have more time to kind of go, “Well, this is why you're looking for that, this is why you're doing this,”

“A lot of the physicians and the specialists will say, “Oh, yeah, there's this, and you can read about that later.” And so this is an opportunity to actually discuss those issues, rather than just, be expected to go read the whole textbook in a week and, you know, do that for every – every topic. So it was good to be able to get concise points, um, and have it still be based on credible experience”.

Tutees perceived tutors to be aware of the level of teaching needed

“I feel like when we have tutorials on the wards, the professors and consultants who teach us, teach us more than what we're supposed to know. They don't teach us at all what we're supposed to know for the exam. When we do tutoring with those a few years above us, they know exactly which point we need to know”.

Tutor responses

Tutors felt that their recent previous experience allowed them to support their junior peers

“We know quite well the depth that they are going to need to know things. And we know what they have coming up… we’ve been through the OSCEs so we can teach them in a way that is the most relevant to them, because we’ve been there only a year or two before – we know.”

By tutoring, students realised how much knowledge they have gained as senior students, and their confidence to teach was increased.

“If I was asked a question, I’d know quite a lot of information, whereas I was concerned that maybe I wouldn’t really know a lot. It gave me a lot more confidence that I have something worthwhile to teach people who are a couple of years younger. It made me more likely to sign up for teaching in the future”

Tutors developed an appreciation for teaching as part of their future professional identity

“It’s good experience for the future. If other teaching opportunities come up, we will have already had experience teaching medical students, so it’s something good for our own further progress as teachers”.