Student-centred Learning With Near-peer Tutoring Compared With a Standard Faculty-led Course for Undergraduate Training in Abdominal Ultrasound. A Multicentre Open-label Randomized Controlled Trial.

Detailed Summary

Background: Ultrasound has become clinical skill widely used in most medical disciplines. Institutions are changing their curricula to implementing basic ultrasound knowledge, often supplementing traditional teaching with 'near-peer' tutoring through classes held by advanced peers. Near-peer tutoring has been found to be both effective and cost-effective. In Switzerland the most popular course in postgraduate training is a resource-intensive 21-hour basic course for abdominal ultrasound. However, this is expensive, and may not be the best way to impart these skills to undergraduates, who need training more adapted to their needs. Therefore a 21-hour blended-learning ultrasound course, comprising 5 hours of e-learning and 16 hours of near-peer tutoring has been developped. Students and their near-peer tutors autonomously organize individual practical teaching sessions within a 16 weeks time period. Methods: Medical students from second to fourth year at the Universities of Bern, Fribourg and Zurich will be included. Stratified by study site, students will be randomized to one of the two interventions. The blended-learning group will receive e-learning and near-peer tutoring over 16 weeks; the other group will receive 21 hours of teaching, from ultrasound experts, in a 2.5-day course. All participants will undergo a six-station OSCE directly after the course and 6 months later. Students will fill out online questionnaires at baseline, directly after the course and 6 months later. The mean scores of both groups will be compared at six months after the end of both courses. Secondary outcome measures will be students' ultrasound skills immediately after the courses, student satisfaction, multivariate regression exploring factors that affect outcome at 6 months and exploratory subgroup analysis. Discussion: This study is designed to compare the current way of ultrasound education in Switzerland with a new blended learning course. It aims to determine whether the blended learning course is as good as, or better than the existing 21-hour standard course. If this is found to be the case, blended learning could help to expand capacity to offer such courses to undergraduate medical students. It would eventually allow undergraduate Swiss medical students to acquire ultrasound skills before starting their residencies. This study also aims at improving the understanding of how to achieve effective student-centred learning supported by near-peer tutoring.

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