Investigating the peer assisted teaching on students' perception of the clinical learning environment in operating room

Background: The clinical learning environment is very important in the medical and other related disciplines education such as operating room technicians. Since working in the operating rooms’ requires a lot of abilities and skills, the perception of the clinical learning environment may be a suitable indicator to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented training. Some believe that the use of peer training programs can improve skills and as a result on the students' perception of the clinical learning environment. This study was conducted to investigate the peer assisted teaching on students' perception of clinical learning environment in operating rooms.Method: A semi-experimental study with two group was conducted on 42 operating room students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Students randomly allocated to intervention and control groups. During the internship period, the control group was trained only under the supervision of the training instructor but the intervention group benefited from peer training in addition. At the end of the internship, both groups were asked to complete Iranian Measure of Operating Theatre Educational Climate (IMOTEC) questionnaire. Then the data were analyzed by SPSS software using independent t-tests and two-way ANNOVA.Results: The results of the two-way ANNOVA test showed that the mean score of the clinical learning environment questionnaire among two groups were significantly different, showing the impact of peer assisted learning program on students' perception of clinical learning environment (p≤0.05).Conclusion: Considering the benefits of peer assisted learning on students' perception of clinical learning environment, it can be integrated to operating room education program.