eprintid: 26310
rev_number: 15
eprint_status: archive
userid: 1589
dir: disk0/00/02/63/10
datestamp: 2019-06-14 13:25:37
lastmod: 2024-05-09 04:19:09
status_changed: 2019-06-14 13:25:37
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Hundertmark, Jan
creators_name: Alvarez, Simone
creators_name: Loukanova, Svetla
creators_name: Schultz, Jobst-Hendrik
title: Stress and stressors of medical student near-peer tutors during courses: a psychophysiological mixed methods study
subjects: ddc-610
divisions: i-910700
keywords: Peer assisted learning, Peer teaching, Tutors, Stress, Medical students, Cortisol, Heart rate variability, Content analysis, Mixed methods
abstract: Background: Structured peer-led tutorial courses are widespread and indispensable teaching methods that relieve teaching staff and contribute to the development of students’ competencies. Nevertheless, despite high general stress levels in medical students and associated increases in psychopathology, specific knowledge of peer tutors’ additional burdens is very limited.

Methods: Sixty student near-peer tutors from two structured peer-teaching programmes volunteered to participate. On multiple occasions in three different course sessions, we assessed tutors’ subjective stress, affective state, heart rate variability, and salivary cortisol. Additionally, tutors named everyday and course-specific stressors, which were evaluated by means of content analyses.

Results: The study participation rate was high (63% of all active tutors). The participating tutors are socially well adapted and resilient individuals. They report a variety of stressors such as time pressure, participant characteristics, teacher role demands, and study requirements, but nevertheless display only moderate psychological and physiological stress that decreases over sessions. Tutors’ negative affect in sessions is low; their positive affect is consistently high for senior as well as novice tutors. Tutors rate their courses’ quality as high and quickly recover after sessions.

Conclusions: Tutors successfully cope with teaching-associated and everyday life demands. The results corroborate the viability and success of current peer-teaching programmes from the tutors’ perspective. This study is the first to comprehensively quantify tutors’ stress and describe frequent stressors, thus contributing to the development of better peer teaching programmes and tutor qualification training.
date: 2019
publisher: BioMed Central
id_scheme: DOI
ppn_swb: 1667626558
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-263105
language: eng
bibsort: HUNDERTMARSTRESSANDS2019
full_text_status: public
publication: BMC Medical Education
volume: 19
number: 95
place_of_pub: London
pagerange: 1-16
issn: 1472-6920
citation:   Hundertmark, Jan ; Alvarez, Simone ; Loukanova, Svetla ; Schultz, Jobst-Hendrik  (2019) Stress and stressors of medical student near-peer tutors during courses: a psychophysiological mixed methods study.  BMC Medical Education, 19 (95).  pp. 1-16.  ISSN 1472-6920     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/26310/1/12909_2019_Article_1521.pdf