Who should teach

Erin Malone

2 Who should teach

Near peers make the best instructors

The most effective instructors for teaching psychomotor skills are near peers. Rather than trying to recruit faculty and specialists, we need to be recruiting advanced students and new graduates. Near peers (one or two years beyond the learners) are more likely to remember the necessary steps and the challenge points. They are also more likely to be able to explain the steps of a skill effectively. Faculty tend to perform skills without thinking and, even when asked to identify steps, miss many. Of the steps they include, faculty tend to include what to do and not how to do it. Faculty can also be intimidating and can make it “look easy”. If students feel they are failing at an “easy” skill, they can soon become frustrated.

Near peers also benefit by consolidating skills and are more likely to develop a teaching identity.

If near peers are not available, other options include trained coaches, technicians, nurses and/or interns. Results are better if they are paid for their efforts. Residents and faculty can learn to focus on the how and to identify more steps, it just may not be best use of their time.

Training faculty

General practitioners are often better instructors than specialists. Training a smaller cohort of generalists and using them consistently is more effective than trying to work with a variety of specialists. The generalists can help with more labs and it is easier to train a smaller group into feedback, lesson plans etc. Instructors that are teaching in more than one lab can also better identify struggling learners.

If you are using faculty, cognitive task analysis can be useful to help identify those automated steps. Cameras capture motions while experts perform a task normally and then again as they talk through the task. Steps are identified and compared between instructors. Gaps and inconsistencies between experts are identified and managed. However, experts still find it difficult to identify components that will be challenging to new learners; near peers and intermediate learners are more useful in identifying high cognitive load areas and those steps that are more difficult.

Faculty are valuable assessors

However, when students are ready to be assessed on their skills, faculty are most useful. Being assessed my near peers doesn’t carry similar weight or perceived value.

Instructors need to care to be effective

Students assigned to instructors who acknowledged student efforts, were caring and demonstrated interest in the students learning showed greater learning, better retention and enhanced transfer compared to those students assigned to disinterested instructors and even to control instructors who were not given relatedness instructions. Peer support is also effective in providing helpful hints and encouraging practice!