12 graduate students and 20 junior high school students were presented with ambiguous information for the purpose of comparison between the senior and the junior students.
She had taught two courses to the junior students.
Both junior and senior students had achieved statistically significant positive figures (10.7 points for junior students and 4.7 points for senior students); the delta score was, however, significantly greater among the junior students (p = 0.003).
The junior students had, however, retained significantly more than the senior students when comparing the retention-test score to the baseline score.
Forty-one percent were not sure about specializing after graduation (61% of the junior students, compared with only 27% of the final year students).
The junior students had just completed two academic semesters of year 2, and were in their first clinical placement – four weeks with clients with peripheral musculoskeletal conditions.
As for the junior students, despite their acknowledged awareness of the relevance of anatomy, their notion of relevance was not commensurate with the importance they accorded to anatomy.
As part of the education programme, the peer educators were intentionally used in training the junior students in the communication skills component, including skills taught as part of the TeamSTEPPS training.
Following the sessions, senior students rated the activity as being a useful learning experience for them (mean = 8.6/10) and for the junior students (mean = 8.9/10), and the activity helped them realise how much they had learnt (mean = 8/10).
The 10 statements presented to the junior students immediately before and after the sessions are listed in Table 1 and cover communication, confidence, preparedness for clinic, and insight into their abilities.
