PeerWise and Pathology: Discontinuing a teaching innovation that did not achieve its potential

Abstract

Introduction Writing and answering multiple choice questions (MCQs) is a learning activity that potentially engages deep learning. We conducted three year-long case studies of MCQ writing and answering in PeerWise to engage students in learning Pathology. Methods Overall, an instrumental case-study design with the structure of sequential multiple case studies was used. Across three years fourth year medical students were required to write and answer MCQs. In 2016 students were provided with advice for writing questions and were encouraged to adhere to Bloom's taxonomy. In 2017, to reduce cognitive load, students were provided with a MCQ template and allocated topics. In 2018, to encourage engagement, students were informed that the top forty MCQs would be in the final exam. Results An evaluation survey was used to measure each student's perception of the MCQ exercise. In 2016 most students had a negative opinion of the MCQ exercise. Students found writing MCQs too time consuming and demanding. In 2017 student's attitudes to the MCQ exercise were more positive. In 2018 there were insufficient responses to the survey but informal student feedback suggested the MCQ exercise was considered an inefficient use of student study time. There were minimal changes in student's activity levels from 2016 to 2017. However, in 2018 when students were informed that the top forty MCQs generated would be included in their final exam they answered a greater number of MCQs than in previous years. Conclusions

Answering questions in a co‐created formative exam question bank improves summative exam performance, while students perceive benefits from answering, authoring, and peer discussion: A mixed methods analysis of PeerWise

“…A compulsory question writing exercise for a pathology course within a medical degree was recently removed due to low student acceptance 39 . Researchers have suggested that the question writing may not be an efficient learning strategy within time pressured programs, 39,50 and our study did not show a significant association between question writing and improved exam performance. Introducing PeerWise as a noncompulsory learning opportunity allowed our students to engage with the elements they perceived most effective for their learning, and may improve acceptance in other interventions.…”

“…36,50 A compulsory question writing exercise for a pathology course within a medical degree was recently removed due to low student acceptance. 39 Researchers have suggested that the question writing may not be an efficient learning strategy within time pressured programs, 39,50 and our study did not show a significant association between question writing and improved exam performance.…”

“…Most interventions used PeerWise as a compulsory component of the curriculum, with engagement manipulated through inclusion of PeerWise exercises in summative assessment 12,36,37 . There remain contradictory reports, however, over whether medical students find compulsory MCQ writing exercises of educational benefit 38,39 . In this paper, we explore medical students’ use of PeerWise and their perceptions of the value of PeerWise as a learning tool, and investigate the relationship between PeerWise use and assessment results, controlling for previous academic performance.…”

Learning technology in health professions education: Realising an (un)imagined future

“…While these questions may lead to nonadoption or early abandonment of a technology, we do not see this as failure in light of educational transformation. 127 We also offer a series of questions for educational researchers to consider in research design, conduct and reporting that might help move the field forward.…”

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Online Peer-based Formative Assessments (PeerWise) to Enhance Student Learning in Physiology: A Systematic Review Using PRISMA Guidelines

“…These less positive outcomes could be explained by the fact that MCQ writing could be a complex task for students especially when the requirements by the instructors are high as such to include questions with high level of content knowledge, problem-solving and content integration where they need greater instructional support from the teachers (Leppink & Duvivier, 2016). Students might also feel overburdened with the activities of authoring and answering questions together with giving feedback to their peers particularly during the running of a course with heavy content such as physiology and pathology (Smith et al, 2020). The time required to generate a highquality question could be another discouraging factor for the students as they might take three to four times longer than the time required for reading a text (Hoogerheide et al, 2019).…”