Cross-year Peer Tutoring in Healthcare and Dental Education: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Cross-year peer tutoring (CYPT) programs show promise of potential benefits not only to the tutees and tutors, butalso to the entire dental education field. A critical review of the literature was performed to determine thecharacteristics of studies assessing CYPT programs in the healthcare field, to see if there are adequate resources inthe literature to aid dental institutions in making evidence-based decisions about their curriculum.A PubMed literature search was conducted to identify pertinent research. Only those articles that demonstratedprograms that paired junior and senior students were included. A total of twenty articles were identified and analyzedfor the characteristics of the CYPT program, the study groups compared, and the outcomes assessed. In the fewstudies that examined qualitative outcomes, many found success measured in positive outcomes for the tutors.However, there are too few studies that examine the qualitative outcomes of tutor interest in careers in dentaleducation.With more contributions to literature in the dental field that specifically target preclinical dental education and tutorinterest in careers in education, published within the context of the curriculum, dental education institutions canbegin making more evidence-based decisions on the incorporation of CYPT programs into their curricula.