Teaching role of the physiology assistant student to improve academic performance in medical students

Abstract

Introduction: The activities carried out by the university student assistant (AA) have multiple benefits for teaching and for their own academic development. Objective: Describe the teaching performance of the student assistants to improve the academic performance, in the contents of Physiology, of the first-year students belonging to the Faculty of Medicine No. 2 of Santiago de Cuba during the 2020-2021 academic year. Materials and methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out where the intentional sample was made up of 52 students with difficulties in the contents of Physiology. Results: 100% obtained a poor rating in the frequent evaluations and in the partial evaluations 36.5% and 63.5% were evaluated as regular and poor, respectively. Once the differentiated teaching consultations were applied, 65.4% of the students improved their results in the frequent evaluations, and 55.8% of them passed the partial exam. Discussion: At ELAM, to address the development of the teaching-learning process of the discipline Morphophysiology in the first year of the degree, the movement of student assistants was encouraged in 2009, with more than 50 second-year students participating in it year selected from among students of exceptional performance. Conclusions: The student assistants in Physiology recognized the differentiated teaching consultations as useful to improve the academic performance of first-year students, which is why they are considered effective in terms of preparation, knowledge, specific skills acquired and communication.