Development of a peer teaching-assessment program and a peer observation and evaluation tool.

OBJECTIVES To develop a formalized, comprehensive, peer-driven teaching assessment program and a valid and reliable assessment tool. METHODS A volunteer taskforce was formed and a peer-assessment program was developed using a multistep, sequential approach and the Peer Observation and Evaluation Tool (POET). A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the efficiency and practicality of the process and to establish interrater reliability of the tool. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated. RESULTS ICCs for 8 separate lectures evaluated by 2-3 observers ranged from 0.66 to 0.97, indicating good interrater reliability of the tool. CONCLUSION Our peer assessment program for large classroom teaching, which includes a valid and reliable evaluation tool, is comprehensive, feasible, and can be adopted by other schools of pharmacy.