Limitations
topics which were consistently answered incorrectly in the pre-test . This may explain why later cohorts achieved greater improvements in MCQ scores after the intervention .
The time interval between the original teaching of the relevant material by PT faculty and its review and reinforcement by the MD students ranged from three months , in the case of Year 1 PT students , to almost three years for Year 3 students . Although this interval varied , it was unlikely to have significantly skewed the results , as the pre-test scores were all generally low .
Sustained positive results in the responses across all three years indicate a readiness for Teamwork and Collaboration by all students , as in the study of Lachmann et al ( 2013 ). The greatest increase in post-intervention results was recorded among Year 3 PT students , possibly because this last academic year provides students with the most clinical exposure , thus providing a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the health care team . This would suggest that Year 3 PT students may be the best candidates for such sessions as they learn patient care in the context of a holistic team . The smallest difference between pre- and postintervention questionnaire results in the Teamwork and Collaboration subscale was observed in Year 1 students ’ responses , possibly because they are still learning about their profession and its role in the multidisciplinary team ( Zwarenstein et al , 2009 ).
Year 1 responses on the Positive Professional Identity subscale showed the largest and only statistically significant increase in all three years of PT students . This subscale explores students ’ willingness to procure positive professional traits as part of defining their professional life . Professional identity can manifest itself in the formation of close-knit social groups throughout the span of a university course , where unique identifiers such as language , ideologies and patterns of knowledge define such groups ( Zwarenstein et al , 2009 ). This is an essential process in team-based professions , but may lead to professional protectionism when done in isolation , thus disrupting the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary team ( Harden , 2015 ). Since Year 1 students are in the early stage of their degree course , features like professional protectionism and working alone have not yet become instilled into students ’ pattern of thinking . This may explain why , based on our results , these Year 1 students appeared to be more open to working in a team and looked more positively towards other professions .
The inverse can be said about Year 3 student responses where the increase in the Positive Professional Identity subscale was the lowest . Being the most mature group in terms of professional identity , they may have developed a more rigid ideology that might have hindered the acquisition of these social and professional characteristics . The lowest pre-intervention score for subscale 2 was seen in Year 2 students ; the increase for this group was however comparable to that of Year 1 students , resulting in higher mean post-intervention scores than for the Year 3 students ( although not statistically significant ). This further supports the observation that students ’ perceptions change as they progress through their degree courses and learn more about their future profession .
There is some evidence of the negative value of learning together across professions . Salazar et al , ( 2017 ), reported that not only did dental students learn problem-solving skills best by just working with their peers , but also that they found it unnecessary to work with students of other dental care professions . In another study , PT students did not find value in the shared-learning experience of improving communication with other professionals in the clinical setting ( Sytsma et al , 2015 ).
Limitations
This experiment was implemented by students for students , resulting in a number of inherent limitations . For example , as there was no faculty supervision during the preparation or delivery of the sessions , there might have been unidentified flaws in the teaching approach . Also , in retrospect we should have allotted more time for discussion and questions during the sessions .
Questionnaire responses were completed online through a link sent by email , and therefore responses relied on students ’ goodwill . For the sake of maintaining a higher response rate , the questionnaire was abbreviated to include two of the four subscales of the original RIPLS , thus possibly reducing its overall validity . However , given the lower response rate in the post-session compared to the pre-session questionnaire , it is quite likely that the response rate would have been even lower had the original RIPLS instrument been used . It is possible that the lower response rate in the posttest questionnaire is because subjects thought the