The concept of interprofessional teaching and learning is not new to education programmes for healthcare professionals in the UK as can be evidenced by, amongst other things, the creation of the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) (www.caipe.org.uk) back in 1987.
One area of interprofessional education (IPE) that is gaining popularity is engaging students in the teaching of their peers. This term is referred to as peer-assisted learning (PAL) although the authors identify that PAL appears to have been researched only in a uniprofessional environment, rather than in an interprofessional context involving students from one discipline in the teaching and development of students from another healthcare profession.
This study, undertaken in one university in Australia, set out to investigate the benefits of interprofessional PAL for both paramedic and midwifery students. Second year paramedic students on a Bachelor of Emergency Health (Paramedic) degree programme received a lecture on normal childbirth from a member of the lecturing staff, which was followed up with practical sessions facilitated by midwifery students in the final year of their programme. The midwifery students worked with the member of staff to ensure that the sessions they were planning were at an appropriate educational level and in alignment with the learning outcomes for the paramedic programme.
Four to six weeks after participation in the sessions both groups of students were asked to complete questionnaires which were slightly modified versions of previously validated tools: paramedic students used the Clinical Teaching Preference Questionnaire (CTPQ), and midwifery students received the Peer Teaching Experience Questionnaire (PTEQ). Both of the questionnaires used a five-point Likert scale structure with response options ranging from ‘strongly agree’ (1) to ‘strongly disagree’ (2), plus an open-ended section where participants could elaborate on their peer-assisted learning experience.
The percentage response rate was lower in the paramedic group (44%; n=73) than in the midwifery group (64.9%; n=37), although the actual number of participants was higher in the paramedic student group.
‘Participants in this study clearly articulated benefits of inter-professional peer-assisted learning’
In addition, two focus groups were held to explore the PAL experience of these students which ultimately involved five paramedic students in one group, and 10 midwifery students in another group.
In relation to learning from their peers, the paramedic students were relatively positive about the experience believing that teaching was an important role for paramedics (M=1.62; SD=0.585), although these findings were slightly lower than the midwifery students (M=1.16; SD=0.374).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the majority of the midwifery students had not taught before, they were apprehensive about peer teaching (M=2.16; SD=1.167) and uncomfortable evaluating the paramedic students' skills (M=3.27; SD=1.232), although only 33 of 37 people responded to the latter statement.
Paramedic students' results were slightly more ambivalent than the midwifery students revealing a marginally increased sense of responsibility when taught by their instructor (M=2.40; SD=0.858), and they were not necessarily as self-confident about performing a skill independently when taught by a peer rather than a member of staff (M=2.91; SD=0.871).
In relation to the interprofessional nature of the event, both groups enjoyed and valued the experience with midwifery students responding positively to the statement ‘There should be more opportunities for interprofessional teaching in education’ (M=1.78; SD=0.672), and paramedic students identifying that they ‘enjoyed the interprofessional experience’ (M=1.59; SD=0.612).
Limitations of the study were discussed with the authors cautioning readers against generalising from these results as this research focuses on just one university and included only two professional groups. In addition, it would be useful to explore why so few students from both professions participated in the focus groups, and to identify the reasons why the percentage return rate of the questionnaire from paramedic students was less than half of the group (although this is not unusual with questionnaires).
The paper concludes that further research into interprofessional PAL would be beneficial involving different health care professions. However, participants in this study clearly articulated benefits of interprofessional peer-assisted learning including development of new knowledge and skills in either teaching (midwifery students) or the area of childbirth (paramedic students), with both groups of students acquiring increased understanding and respect for each other's professions.