Impact of the peer education model on nursing students' anxiety and psychomotor skill performance: A quasi-experimental study

Background: Peer-assisted education (PAE) is a collaborative and active learning strategy in which another student or another student group teaches one group of students. This model is quite widely used in social and health science vocational education. Aim: This study was carried out to determine the effect of peer education on clinical skill learning and anxiety in nursing students. A quasi-experimental and a single-blinded design were used. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted using experimental (n = 45) and control groups (n = 47) in a university in the Central Anatolia Region, Turkey. A total of 92 students were included. The experimental group received peer education nursing skills. The control group also received education in the traditional model. An Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) pretest and posttest were used to assess student performance. Results: It was found that the total scores of posttraining exam success in both experimental and control groups increased (35.20 +/- 4.63; 36.70 +/- 5.36, respectively) and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P > 0.264). The posttest scores of anxiety in the experimental group were less than the control group (30.18 +/- 2.25; 41.21 +/- 4.20, respectively). Conclusions: The use of the peer education model in nursing education has been found to reduce the level of learning anxiety and positively affect psycho-motor skill acquisition. It is proposed to be used as an alternative method in vocational skills training within this context in this area.