Correlation between tutor domains of competency and student performance: a cross-sectional study

Abstract: Introduction: Problem-Based Learning involves the tutor acting as a facilitator, where social and cognitive congruence, as well as knowledge of the content are considered essential factors for the exercise. Objective: To verify tutors’ domains of competency and their correlation to student performance. Method: Cross-sectional study conducted between February 2016 and 2017, with tutors and medical students from the Pernambuco School of Health. Correspondence analysis based on Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to ascertain the correlation between the tutor domains of competency profile and the overall performance. Results: The study included 34 tutors and 533 students, three domains of competency were identified within the frequencies: cognitive congruence in 88.7%, social congruence in 93.6% and content knowledge in 98.9%. No correlation was found between the domains of competency and performance. Conclusion: This finding is thought to be due to the lack of control of confounding variables.