More minds, more learning: integrating peer learning with lectures to boost conceptual understanding in medical education

Lectures as a primary method for knowledge transmission often fail to foster deep conceptual understanding among students. To investigate whether enabling peer discussion enhances learning outcomes, 88 undergraduate students from a Saudi medical school were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions: a lecture-only group, a peer-learning-only group, a peer-learning-followed-by-lecture group, and a lecture-followed-by-peer-learning group. A comprehensive concept retrieval test was administered before and after the intervention to isolate and evaluate the specific instructional effects of each approach separately.

Pre-test scores showed no significant differences among the four groups, confirming successful randomization and equivalent baseline knowledge. Post-intervention test results revealed substantial variations in performance across the groups. Mean test scores (with standard deviations) were: lecture-only = 23.09 (2.84), peer-learning-only = 31.05 (3.94), lecture-then-peer-learning = 47.30 (5.75), and peer-learning-then-lecture = 49.55 (7.06).

Statistical analysis demonstrated that combining lectures with peer learning significantly outperformed single-method instructional approaches (p