Perception of Undergraduate Medical Students Regarding Peer Assessment Learning inPeshawar

Abstract

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken among second to fifth-year undergraduate medical students at three Peshawar medical schools: Northwest School of Medicine, Rehman Medical College, and Pakistan International Medical College. Following informed consent and ethical approval, students completed a 15-item Likert scale comparing faculty-led instruction versus peerassisted learning (PAL). Convenience sampling revealed that 262 of the 384 students who answered were qualified for the study. The anonymised data was analyzed in SPSS with descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-tests, independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and chi-square tests (p<0.05).The mean PAL score (Q1-Q15) was 1.62 (SD 0.51), while the average professor score (Q5-Q10) was 0.84 (SD 0.92). A paired t-test indicated that faculty-led teaching outperformed PAL (mean difference = -0.77, t = -19.81, p >< 0.001). The preference numbers were: PAL = 214, Faculty = 47, and Equal = one. PAL perception varied by gender (male = 1.72 vs female = 1.46; t = 3.252, p = 0.0017) and college (ANOVA p < 0.001), with significant associations between preference and gender/college. In layman's terms, students generally prefer PAL and peer-led learning, although they believe faculty-led education is more effective based on the metrics utilized. We suggest implementing structured, supervised peer-teaching programs with tutor training while maintaining faculty assistance. The study's key flaws are its cross-sectional design (no causal claims), the exclusion of first-year students, the use of a self-created questionnaire, convenience sampling, and limited generalizability outside of the studied colleges