Student and tutor perceptions of a small group
learning program for medical students

A learner-centred, small group learning program has been established as a part of the undergraduate medical course at James Cook University. Throughout the pre-clinical years, groups of 6-10 students and a tutor meet on a weekly basis. Significantly, this is not a PBL program. Its focus is to develop interpersonal, team working and reflective learning skills via content-linked activities. Tutors are drawn from clinicians, basic and social scientists, researchers and postgraduate students. A survey of the perceptions of students and tutors was conducted during 2003.

Students across the pre-clinical years prefer clinicians as tutors. Amongst the most useful aspects of the program were case scenario discussions, clinical skill revision, group work and content integration. The strict/formal structure of the meetings and the frequency/duration of the meetings were amongst the least useful. The tutors were most enthusiastic about the scenarios, group work and the opportunity to get to know students better.

The students and tutors appeared to agree that the scenarios were the focus of the meetings, that students were becoming more self-reliant in finding answers to questions posed at the meetings, that there was no need for more group meetings and that students valued the meetings. However in regard to poor student attendance at the meetings, students perceived this as a problem within the program while tutors did not.

These findings suggest that between tutors and students there is a high degree of agreement in the perceptions of the program. In the activity session the facets of the program that were particularly valued by students and/or tutors will be discussed.