essay about peer tutoring

Peer Tutoring in the Pandemic

By  Doug Kovel

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As a professional tutor, it may seem odd for me to support expanding college peer tutoring programs. After all, it’s partly what I do for a living as an adult, and, what’s more, how can a 20-year-old student possibly possess the subject matter or pedagogical expertise to successfully teach others? Shouldn’t someone with a teaching credential -- or at least a bachelor’s degree -- be the one performing tutoring services?

Yet for college students relegated to online learning in the age of the pandemic, especially freshmen who have not yet integrated into their college communities or acclimated to the rigors of college-level work, peer tutors may be exactly what they need. Indeed, several studies have shown peer tutoring to be quite effective. So how do these relatively inexperienced tutors get such great results in subjects ranging from multivariable calculus to organic chemistry? Research suggests the following might be at play.

Students often perceive peer tutors as less threatening. Because many peer tutors are close in age to their tutees, they can often better form personal connections that transcend the tutoring relationship. A peer tutor bridges that gap between a quasi-authority figure and a friend, who can serve as an educator and therapist of sorts.

Students will often vent to me about their problems and ask for advice. Social isolation can interfere with learning, and for some students, peer tutors may be their first major social connection at college, thus diminishing their feelings of loneliness. Students with at least one or two meaningful friendships are more likely to succeed academically and, in turn, contribute meaningfully to the classroom and campus (or during these times, virtual campus) community.

Peer tutors can serve as role models. Sure, professors can be role models for what students can become “one day.” Peer tutors allow students to see what they can accomplish soon . This can increase students’ self-efficacy, or belief they can be successful. Students who believe in themselves are more likely to put in the work they need to improve academically. Students who do improve as a result of peer tutoring may be more inclined to give back to their college communities, such as by tutoring or mentoring future students, as they grow more comfortable in their own skin and confident in their skills.

One of my friends initially struggled with organic chemistry, but a peer tutor helped her get an A. She went on to become a peer tutor in this subject herself, which she found really fun and rewarding. She is now a doctor, making her alma mater proud!

Peer tutoring has motivational benefits, and it has been associated with lower test anxiety and higher student engagement in the learning process. In other words, quality peer tutoring can make students feel less intimidated by the material they are studying and more likely to engage with it deeply, including through in-class discussions or simply in their own studying and research. Students who are more active and engaged learners can better contribute to the college community both inside and outside the classroom.

Peer tutoring takes away the stigma of asking for help. Students may be more inclined to seek other forms of academic support, such as by going to faculty office hours or the school’s writing center, if they see that getting help is a normal process and nothing to be ashamed of. In the process, some of these students may find themselves with faculty mentors, who can grant them new opportunities, such as research assistantships or internships.

Peer tutors can help their tutees become better learners. Peer tutors can also give students insights into how to navigate their academic and personal responsibilities, including useful study and time management strategies. The parent of one student I worked with said that I helped him not just with math, but with the overall way he approaches his studying. Students who develop better learning habits are more likely to do well both in school and in their careers. And students with fulfilling careers often give back to their alma maters with donations that allow them to build facilities, implement new programs and recruit or support underserved populations.

I should note that it is not just the tutees who benefit from peer tutoring. The tutors, who are college students themselves, can also refine their subject matter expertise. The peer tutoring relationship at its best is a mini learning community in which both parties learn from each other.

For example, when I tutor math, it always excites me when a student shows me a new way of solving a problem I had never considered, allowing me to tweak my instruction for other students based on my newfound knowledge. Tutors can also improve their communication skills, develop empathy and find a sense of purpose.

Back when I myself used to tutor my friends as a high school or college student, it made me feel proud to help my classmates succeed. Even though my students weren’t paying me, the reward for me was seeing them earn higher grades and become more confident individuals. I remember one instance in which I spent many hours informally tutoring one of my classmates in our college biology class for nonmajors. She was so grateful for my help that she bought me coffee one day since she couldn’t afford to pay me and insisted that I accept it. That I was able to make someone’s life just a little bit less stressful was extremely gratifying. As an added perk, explaining and discussing the concepts with her helped me better solidify my own understanding of the material.

Clearly, if colleges want their students to thrive, instituting formal peer tutoring programs seems like a no-brainer that can be done at relatively little cost. Peer tutoring programs in colleges have been documented as far back as the 18th century, and they have grown increasingly popular in recent years, with hundreds of institutions having some form of peer tutoring or peer learning.

While peer tutoring models vary in structure, research suggests that they are often most effective when a single department administers and evaluates an institutionalized program that aligns with the institution’s values. Student affairs and academic affairs should coordinate with departmental faculty members in the subjects for which peer tutoring will be offered to plan the programs and establish learning goals. Peer tutors can be paid or offered experiential course credit, as is the case for peer tutors at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ideally, the tutors should be screened to make sure they are qualified to tutor the subjects and given ongoing training and support in best tutoring practices. Some higher education institutions, like Duke University, have been doing this successfully already. For example, all students in the mathematics department can get up to 12 free hours of tutoring from a trained peer tutor who earned a high grade in the relevant class. Just as the peer tutors provide moral support to their tutees, faculty advisers should reaffirm peer tutors’ own credibility and expertise. Advisers should provide tutors with clear expectations for their responsibilities and ongoing support.

In the era of online learning, peer tutoring relationships can prove pivotal in making some struggling students feel more connected to their college community and better positioned to tackle academic challenges. Colleges should jump at the chance to adopt this high-impact and relatively low-cost opportunity.

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Student Voices

Aug. 6, 2021, 1:36 p.m.

The value of getting — and giving — peer tutoring

by Ava Hazzouri, 12th grade, Kingston, Penn.

Having a tutor helped me learn in a way that made sense. Due to my learning differences, an individualized approach was critical for me to meet my goals in school. Once I learned how to learn and succeed academically with one-on-one help, I decided to become a tutor myself.

In my sophomore year of high school, I launched The Study Hard Project, a peer-tutoring initiative which is free and fun for everyone. It's run by high school students from across my region in Northeastern Pennsylvania and serves middle and high school students from all over the country and even a couple from overseas. My favorite thing about The Study Hard Project is that anyone involved can be a student one week to get some help for themselves and a tutor the next week to help someone else.

Having a tutor helped me learn in a way that made sense.

While the tutors volunteer to satisfy the service requirements at their high schools, they receive much more. For example, Shawna, a tutor from Wyoming Seminary Upper School, said, “Working with Study Hard, I’ve learned that empowering others is the best way to feel my own power." Our tutor from Scranton Preparatory School, Molly, shared, “I never realized how smart I was until I started tutoring. It makes me more confident in my work and in myself.”

When the pandemic hit, we moved from in-person study sessions to Zoom sessions. Now, we have both online and in-person tutoring, SAT tutoring, College Prep webinars, Extracurricular Clubs (The Book Club, Wellness Club, Creativity Club and Community Service Club) and Study Skills Camps.

My favorite thing about The Study Hard Project is that anyone involved can be a student one week to get some help for themselves and a tutor the next week to help someone else.

The benefits of one-on-one tutoring are well-documented. Approximately 30% of middle and high school students are tutored in various subjects. In middle school, students form habits that impact academic success later on. Tutoring is an effective way to help middle school students take responsibility, improve study skills and manage their time wisely. For high schoolers, improving school performance can help boost confidence and decrease the impact of normal teen stress. Tutoring also helps keep at-risk students in school until they graduate from high school.

Unfortunately, tutoring can be expensive. With a Google search (“cost of tutoring in the United States”), I found that tutoring in academic subjects can range on average from $25 to $100 an hour and from $45 to $300 an hour for SAT tutoring. This is concerning and raises the question, are the benefits of one-on-one tutoring reserved for privileged students?

...are the benefits of one-on-one tutoring reserved for privileged students?

The United States student body is diverse and includes more low income, minority and underserved students each year. According to research, racial, ethnic, gender and social-class differences impact academic opportunities and affect students’ interest and preparation as early as middle school. These early disadvantages produce educational disparities in high school, on college campuses and in the job force.

Peer-tutoring is an actionable, cost effective (often, free!) way to level the academic playing field for middle and high school students across the country. The best part is that when students help students, everyone is better for it. Research shows that peer-tutoring leads to an increase in academic performance, school attendance, socialization, self-esteem and attitude toward school for all involved, and I can attest to all of it!

Peer-tutoring is an actionable, cost effective (often, free!) way to level the academic playing field...

The impact we’re having on one another is beyond what I ever imagined. One of our eighth graders told us that he went from a 54% average to a 91% in math from participating in weekly tutoring with us. Students have shared that learning from their peers feels less threatening for them than asking for teachers’ help. Another one of our students said he feels awkward asking teachers his questions because he worries they’ll get mad that he wasn’t listening in class. He says he feels free to ask us anything. That’s our goal, to be an easily accessible, safe space, where learning feels doable and fun.

The Study Hard project is open to all middle and high school students interested in meeting their academic potential, and that includes you! Check it out at studyhardproject.com or on Instagram at @studyhardnepa .

Ava Hazzouri is a 17-year-old rising senior at Wyoming Seminary Upper School in Kingston, Penn. She is the founder of The Study Hard Project, a volunteer organization that aims to level the academic playing field for middle and high school students in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Ava is an advocate for students with learning differences and is the history department student representative at her school. She’s involved in numerous clubs, is a peer-tutor and volunteers in the writing center on campus. Ava enjoys running, making art and baking. She is proud of her Lebanese heritage, values her relationships with family and friends and is obsessed with her fish, Merlin.

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Peer Tutoring: Transforming Academic Success Together

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Introduction: Unveiling the Unexpected

Navigating the dual role experience.

Tutoring Benefits: Enhancing Comprehension

Tutee benefits: learning from peers, establishment of routine: from chaos to consistency, exam preparation skills: a strategic shift, conclusion: gratitude for transformative success.

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How peer tutoring can transform high school academics

by: Meg McIntyre | Updated: May 5, 2024

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When an angry parent approached Principal Michael Mann a few years ago about her daughter’s failing math grade, he was well aware of the problem. His school, North Star Academy Washington Park High School in Newark, NJ, knew too many of his students were struggling to stay afloat academically. He saw it in the classrooms and he had the data. The numbers revealed in stark terms how incoming students from other schools were far behind in math and trying — and too often failing — to keep up with the charter school’s rigorous curriculum.

Mann had already set up weekly, teacher-led group tutorials for extra support, stretching educators to the limit of their schedules. He reassured the mother that her daughter was enrolled in the weekly teacher tutoring.

The parent’s response was eye-opening for the principal. He recalls her saying to him, “One hour? It’s not enough. She’s still failing. What are you going to do?” Mann recalls feeling blindsided by her anger and the truth behind her frustration. “At the time, I didn’t have another answer.”

Later in his office, Mann felt guilty. He couldn’t ask his already overtaxed teachers to take on more work. But the students needed more one-on-one intervention to succeed academically.

That’s when Mann had an “ah-ha!” moment: Maybe some of his students might be up to the job of tutoring their peers.

Students helping students

Mann got to work setting up a peer tutoring practice at his school. His school’s program joins a growing number of high schools using peer tutoring as a way to raise academic success. The practice is simple enough: one student tutors another student. The goal, however, aims to help both students academically, inviting them to be active learners working in tandem toward academic success.

The practice of students learning from other students dates back centuries. But peer tutoring became more formalized in education during the 1800s and by the 1970s was being looked at as an important teaching tool . It is now employed in schools from the elementary years to the college level. For schools with overstretched educators and limited budgets, peer tutoring is considered a cost-effective intervention that’s proven to benefit both the tutors and tutees.

Most often, more advanced students help their peers review and reinforce concepts learned in class, often during study hall periods or sometimes sessions outside of school. But there’s a range of peer tutoring models: Some pair students across a large age gap. Others match partners within the same grade level. Students might take turns as tutor and pupil. Small groups or even entire classes can take the place of one-on-one pairings.

A practice that leads to academic success

Peer tutoring has been shown to produce positive academic and social outcomes for students from kindergarten through their senior year of high school. A 2013 research analysis found students participating in peer tutoring showed academic gains across content areas and grade levels, including students with disabilities; students with emotional and behavioral disorders benefited most.

“I think what is most useful about these programs is not so much that they teach new material to the kids,” says Dough Fuchs, a professor of special education at Vanderbilt University. “But they give students an opportunity to practice intensively the skills that they need in these different academic domains like reading and math.”

A win-win for all students

The benefits aren’t just for students being tutored. In a 2010 study of peer tutoring in science , students reported tutoring motivated them to strengthen their understanding of certain concepts and helped them identify gaps in their knowledge. A 1982 research analysis showed that both tutors and their partners outperformed students in control groups on math and reading tests. “If you organize peer tutoring properly, then what you will get is gains from it for both the tutors and the tutees,” says Keith Topping, professor of educational and social research at the University of Dundee in Scotland.

Research has shown peer tutoring can also positively affect social relationships. In a 2014 review of previous studies , K-12 students participating in various models of peer tutoring showed improved social skills, increased positive social interactions with peers, and increased academic engagement.

For some learners, the greatest benefit is having someone in their corner. Kymani Fraser, a senior tutor at North Star in Newark, NJ says he advocated for his tutee with the student’s teachers. As a result, the student received more individualized attention in class, Kymani says, and made him feel more supported and motivated to learn.

“I felt like I was able to make a change in his life, and he was able to bring up his grades,” Kymani says. “Just having that impact on him really made me feel like my role was important.”

Peer tutoring to the rescue

North Star’s peer tutoring program started with small group sessions during study hall periods, and went virtual during the pandemic after students slipped behind in remote learning. Pairs meet twice a week in Zoom breakout rooms, and about 54 percent of students being tutored this year passed a class second quarter that they failed in the first quarter, Mann says. The program also aims to foster social connections and promote a positive school culture , which is one of the reasons Mann allows tutors to request their partners.

“I think having someone who you’re a friend to, or at least an acquaintance, really helps because it establishes a sense of care and showing I’m caring about you,” explains freshman tutor Sage Jones. “I wasn’t just assigned to you as another person to be on your back. It’s someone who I genuinely care about, the work that we’re doing, and that I want to see you succeed.”

The peer tutoring approach at the School of Industrial Design, Engineering and Art (iDEA) also emphasizes collective success. It’s one of three high schools in Tacoma, WA that offer the BRIDGE program (Building Relationships in Diverse Group Environments.). BRIDGE tutors attend class with their student during the subject they’re struggling in to provide support ranging from help with note taking to help working through connections and discussion themes.

iDEA Co-Director Zach Varnell says it’s not uncommon for a student to act as a BRIDGE in one class and receive help from one in another.

“There are certain strengths and areas of support that every student needs,” he says. “And so at the very beginning, the mission of the BRIDGE program was really to identify how students can both be leaders for other students in areas where they’re really strong, and then also be willing to lean on support from other students in areas where they need additional help.”

Supporting students at all levels

Peer tutoring programs are often launched to support students who are struggling the most. But it’s important to avoid symbolically labelling kids as “smart” or “not so smart.” So how can you develop a program that benefits all students?

For starters, don’t count anyone out, Topping says. Some students that educators might not immediately think of as ideal tutors — such as English language learners or those with learning disabilities — can have a big impact on their partners, he says, though they might need more guidance throughout the process.

Peer-mediated instruction is commonly used as a strategy to better serve and include students with disabilities. iDEA in Tacoma is an inclusive school where students with and without special education plans learn together in the same classrooms, and the BRIDGE program is part of what makes that possible, Varnell says. To implement something similar, schools should focus on creating a culture centered around community, he says.

“It has to be about every student recognizing that their job in going to school and the reason for going to school is not just to advance your own learning,” Varnell says. “It’s to be a part of the community and recognize that in the community you’re in, we only all succeed if everyone has a path to success.”

Topping advocates for class-wide tutoring, which pairs all students from two classrooms, typically at different grade levels, for tutoring during the school day. He says this avoids labeling students who need help as weak or underperforming, and allows all students to benefit. “If you do it on a whole-class basis, and you do it on a cross-age basis, then you can include absolutely everybody,” he says.

How to do peer tutoring well

The benefits of peer tutoring can be diminished if not implemented correctly. Here are some things to watch out for:

• To be effective, students need instructional training before you unleash them as tutors. One introductory training activity: Ask tutors to walk their partners through tying their shoelaces, step-by-step. This simple exercise helps students learn to teach methodically and thoughtfully.
• Ideally, sessions should focus on practicing skills and encouraging critical thinking rather than memorizing facts, and peer tutoring should supplement classroom learning, not attempt to replace it. “Peer-mediated instruction is not — I underscore the word not — meant to substitute for good teacher-led instruction,” Fuchs says.
• It might be tempting to pair the highest-achieving student with the lowest-achieving student, but Topping says tutoring is more beneficial for both students when they’re closer in ability. Learners see the most gains when there’s about a two-year gap in age or knowledge between them, he says.
• When personality clashes happen, you can give students the option to be reassigned to a new partner, but Topping notes it’s best not to split up pairs that are working well.

Peer tutoring at your school

For parents….

• If your school has a peer tutoring program, ask how it’s organized and how tutors are chosen.
• If your school doesn’t have a program, start a conversation about peer tutoring by asking about how the school supports struggling students. “What are your early warning systems for knowing that she’s failing?” Mann says. “And then what will happen if and when she does?”

For educators and administrators…

• If you’re interested in launching a peer tutoring program, check out this free implementation guide for high schools created by the National Scholar Foundation , which includes testimonials from students, program development materials, example training activities, and more.

This article is part of our Transforming High School series , a collection of stories, videos, and podcasts exploring the practices that prepare students for success in college and beyond.

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Keeping Up With... Peer Tutoring

This edition of Keeping Up With… was written by Monica Gingerich.

Monica Gingerich is Coordinator for Student Experience and Engagement at Penn State University, email: [email protected] .

Introduction

Peer tutoring is an instructional practice that involves a student tutor teaching a skill or supporting a student tutee through a task. There are different methods of peer tutoring, including models that have one person serving primarily as the tutor and the other primarily as the tutee. Other models have two or more people sharing knowledge and skills cooperatively. Students should be trained and guided through the tutoring process in order for this learning model to be effective. Peer tutoring can occur in any discipline and at a range of ages or educational levels. Peer learning theory and peer assisted learning strategies are other terms often used to describe this practice.

Why Peer Tutoring?

There are proven benefits for both tutors and tutees alike in peer tutoring models. When peers act as guides or mentors in the learning process, students may feel more comfortable and experience fewer barriers in their learning journey[1]. Not only can peer tutoring help in supporting academic skills and success, [2] it also provides skill building that can be applied to professional settings. Both hard and soft skills, can be developed for both tutors and tutees by way of a peer learning model.[3] Overall, this practice can foster a sense of belonging as tutors and tutees form relationships with their peers. In The Rowman & Littlefield Guide to Learning Center Administration , peer tutoring is identified as a High Impact Practice for students and thus a great way to foster student engagement.[4] In fact, depending on how peer tutoring programs are run, several High Impact Practices could be incorporated into an engaged learning experience for students, such as working in a collaborative learning environment and creating common intellectual experiences through the research process.

Peer Tutoring in Student Research

Peer tutoring in student research is a natural fit for academic libraries to provide to their campus communities. These tutors are often referred to as peer research consultants. In practice, this service can look like formal reference consultations, casual reference inquiries, or can be built into specific course-related research projects. These interactions could take place in person or virtually. Training research consultants: a guide for academic libraries [5] provides over a dozen case studies, emphasizing how peer tutoring services in student research can be successful in a variety of models and instructional environments.

When developing a plan for a peer student research tutoring service, some areas to consider include:

• Target audience for receiving services (undergraduate, graduate)
• Clear scope of what research peer tutors will cover, and the scope of research other library faculty and staff will cover
• Plans and staffing for training and supervising peer tutors
• Identifying a schedule for peer tutoring availability
• Mode for provision of service (in person, virtual)
• Data collection planning
• Service evaluation and assessment planning

Peer Tutoring in Academic Libraries

As outlined above, academic libraries can design and develop their own peer research tutoring services. One strategy for beginning this work is partnering with complementary tutoring programs on campus. Although peer tutoring can occur in any discipline, many academic libraries partner with their campus writing centers as writing and research are a recursive process. Often the library is a centralized location for academic campuses and is a much sought after space by students and faculty or staff alike. Forming partnerships with other departments and colleges on campus to bring peer tutoring services to the physical library space is an excellent way to support these programs. Academic libraries can also provide robust virtual spaces to host peer tutoring services. This could look like a direct reference chat or a form to receive research assistance in a less immediate time frame. They can also partner by marketing and promoting partner tutoring programs in library spaces and through instructional efforts.

An example of how peer tutoring in a student research program can look in an academic library can be found at Penn State University. Here, at the University Park campus in Pattee/Paterno Library, is an undergraduate peer tutoring hub known as the Search Bar . The Search Bar is staffed by a Peer Research Consultant as well as a Peer Writing Tutor. This is a collaboration between Penn State Libraries and Penn State Learning. Although the Writing Center and the peer tutoring in research program are run separately, members from each respective unit work together to provide shared training sessions for all peer tutors a few times a semester, and work together to promote, improve, and assess Search Bar services. Tutors are encouraged to work jointly with a tutee when a student requires both writing and research support, either in a single session or by referral to the other service.

Peer tutoring supports both student tutors and tutees in reaching their academic goals. Creating a low stakes environment for students to practice and apply newly acquired skills and strategies contributes to student success in higher education. Academic libraries can play an integral role in offering and supporting peer tutoring services at their campuses.

[1] O’Kelly, Mary, Julie Garrison, Brian Merry, and Jennifer Torreano.. 2015. "Building a Peer-Learning Service for Students in an Academic Library." portal:Libraries and the Academy. 15 (1): 163-182. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2015.0000 . [2] Grillo, Michael C. and Cathy W. Leist. 2013. "Academic Support as a Predictor of Retention to Graduation: New Insights on the Role of Tutoring, Learning Assistance, and Supplemental Instruction." Journal of College Student Retention : Research, Theory & Practice 15 (3): 387-408. https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.15.3.e . [3] Clark, Karlene and Avery Breiland. 2023. "'I Want My PRC:' Engagement of Undergraduates with and Assessment of the Peer Research Consultant Program." Reference Services Review . 51 (2): 190-204. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-09-2022-0042 . [4] Sanford, Daniel R and Michelle Steiner. 2021. The Rowman & Littlefield Guide to Learning Center Administration: Leading Peer Tutoring Programs in Higher Education . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538154625/The-Rowman-and-Littlefield-Guide-to-Learning-Center-Administration-Leading-Peer-Tutoring-Programs-in-Higher-Education . [5] Torreano, Jennifer and Mary O'Kelly. 2021. Training Research Consultants : A Guide for Academic Libraries. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/training-research-consultants-guide-academic-libraries .

Further Reading

Epstein, Maglen Bridget Draxler. 2021. How to Be a Peer Research Consultant : A Guide for Librarians and Students . Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/how-be-peer-research-consultant-guide-librarians-and-students .

Hornby, Garry and Deborah Greaves. 2022. Essential Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies: Ensuring Optimal Academic Achievement for Students . Cham: Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-96229-6 .

Jackson, Holly A. 2020. Sharing Spaces and Students: Employing Students in Collaborative Partnerships . Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/sharing-spaces-and-students-employing-students-collaborative-partnerships .

Sanford, Daniel R. 2021. The Rowman & Littlefield Guide for Peer Tutors . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538135518/The-Rowman-and-Littlefield-Guide-for-Peer-Tutors .

Topping, Keith J. 2017. Effective Peer Learning: From Principles to Practical Implementation . New York: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Effective-Peer-Learning-From-Principles-to-Practical-Implementation/Topping-Buchs-Duran-Keer/p/book/9781138906495 .

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Peer Tutoring and English Language Learning Research Paper

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Introduction

Literature review.

Peer tutoring is a flexible and efficient strategy that involves students playing the roles of academic tutors in an educational facility. As a rule, a student with higher academic performance is paired with the lower-performing student in order to revise critical academic or behavioral aspects of learning. Peer tutoring is often chosen for its effectiveness in increasing learning opportunities for all students, encouraging engagement in the classroom, enhancing self-efficacy among students, as well as promoting social development in groups of learners.

It is important to remember that peer tutors require a particular type of training when being prepared for the accomplishment of their roles. For example, a peer tutor should be taught about establishing the rules of confidentiality when reporting the learning progress; moreover, there is a need to teach tutors-to-be how to provide constructive feedback for the responses of trainees as well as the effective strategies for monitoring the overall progress of the tutoring.

The current research will aim to answer the question of whether there is a relationship between peer tutoring and international students’ English learning outcomes. Since international students are tremendously challenged by English language acquisition, there is a need for educational researchers to come up with practical tools for enhancing their learning.

The topic of peer tutoring is vast as it has already gained attention from different theorists and practitioners that invested in studying it. This paper will focus on presenting a literature review of prominent works on peer tutoring to determine researchers’ views on the topic, the role of peer tutoring in educational research, as well as trends that prevail in the academic works.

Peer Tutoring and Language Learning

Bowman-Perrott et al. (2013) focused on studying the educational benefits of peer tutoring and found that moderate to large academic benefits have been attributed to this model of teaching (p. 39). By conducting a meta-analysis with twenty-six studies published between 1984 and 2011, the researchers found that the overall effect of peer tutoring on the academic performance of students was positive (Bowman-Perrott et al., 2013, p. 47), which points to the effectiveness of the method and its potential of being used in the future academic practice.

Moreover, it was found that peer-tutoring models that involved a system of rewards for students were even more effective compared to the ones that did not; this suggests that the usage of rewards in achieving better academic outcomes is a useful strategy that should not be overlooked by educators. Bowman-Perrott et al. (2013) also found that peer tutoring with the use of older students as a means for motivation has been particularly effective for those students who experienced academic difficulties (p. 49).

Research by Arco-Tirado, Fernandez-Martin, and Fernandez-Balboa (2011) studied the impact of peer tutoring on preventing academic failure along with identifying the potential benefits of such programs on students’ cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies and social skills of students-mentors (p. 773). By integrating the concept of PTP (an educational program designed to enhance learning and teaching among freshmen and their tutors through focusing on specific aspects of their development), researchers found that PTP did not have a statistically significant influence on the GPA of freshmen (Arco-Tirado et al., 2011, p. 780).

On the other hand, Arco-Tirado et al. (2011) found a statistically significant difference between the treatment of freshmen and control groups in their metacognitive and cognitive strategies (p. 780). Furthermore, when initial data was compared with post-experiment data, it was found that ptp had a statistically significant impact on cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Apart from trainees, PTP also proved to be beneficial for tutors regarding their social skills as well as cognitive and metacognitive skills.

Mackiewicz, Wood, Cooke, and Mazzotti (2010) took a unique approach to peer tutoring and aimed to answer the question of whether peer tutoring with audio prompting had positive effects on vocabulary acquisition of struggling readers (p. 1). The study had the purpose of comparing the effects of vocabulary words’ incidental learning and incidental learning, paired with peer tutoring that included audio prompting procedures.

The data collected post-experiment showed that struggling readers did not gain many benefits from incidental learning; however, incidental learning plus peer tutoring showed to be more efficient, especially with the added feature of audio prompting (Mackiewicz et al., 2010, p. 8). The procedures of peer tutoring were predominantly explicit and were made up of different opportunities to practice saying and defining new words as well as applying them in a different context for a better understanding. Similarly to the findings of many other studies, this research managed to demonstrate the beneficial impact of peer and parent tutoring with the use of audio prompting to support the unskilled tutor and improve the English vocabulary of a preschooler with limited proficiency in the language as well as the acquisition of sight words by a kindergartener (Mackiewicz et al., 2010, p. 8).

It is important to point out the study’s unique approach towards peer tutoring since it integrated a particular learning tool of audio prompting to determine whether it would have an impact on vocabulary acquisition.

Another study that examined peer tutoring in the context of language learning was the research of Klingbeil, Moeyaert, Archer, Chimboza, & Zwolski Jr. (2017) that focused on determining the efficacy of peer-mediated incremental rehearsal (PMIR) for English language learners whose proficiency in the English language limits their ability to successfully access the learning material (p. 123). Klingbeil et al. (2017) integrated the concept of incremental rehearsal (an evidence-based intervention for teaching new words) to see whether peer tutoring would show better results (p. 122).

Neddenriep, Skinner, Wallace, and McCallum (2009) focused on reviewing the effects of ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) on the increased oral reading fluency and reading comprehension (p. 244). Researchers found that peer tutoring enhanced learners’ reading comprehension in both experiments. Moreover, since the experiments conducted by researchers included comprehension rate and level, peer-mediated learning showed improvements in both levels, pointing at its overall effectiveness in second language acquisition.

Bowman-Perrott, deMarin, Mahadevan, and Etchells (2016) also focused on the English language acquisition with regards to assessing the academic, social, and language production outcomes for students engaged in peer tutoring (p. 359). Overall, the researchers found that peer tutoring is an effective method for encouraging academic gains for English language learners with different levels of language proficiency. Furthermore, English language learners seem to obtain both social and educational benefits from getting instructions from their peers who are native English language speakers (Bowman-Perrott et al., 2016, p. 378).

Researchers stated that further investigation was needed for examining the effect of peer tutoring on English language learners across many academic contexts. Due to the fact that the sphere of English language learning currently faces tremendous challenges, there should be a continuous investigation of effective methods of enhancing students language acquisition and discovering new strategies for improving instruction.

When it comes to reading skills, the effect of peer tutoring was examined by Kourea, Cartledge, and Musti-Rao (2007), who conducted their experiments in the context of urban elementary schools (p. 95). According to the findings of the research, all participants of the study managed to learn more new words in the context of peer tutoring instruction compared to teacher-led instruction. Concerning reading fluency and comprehension, all students showed an improvement in these skills: the target group of students showed improved fluency gains on the constructed paragraphs (Kourea et al., 2007, p. 101).

The total class peer tutoring showed to be an effective practice that proved to improve sight word acquisition, maintenance, reading fluency, and comprehension among six students from an urban elementary school, which is consistent with previous studies that suggested that peer instruction could be very effective in the context of language learning. Despite the fact that only one student out of six showed smaller improvements in the sight-word acquisition by the end of the study, the overall impact of total class peer tutoring was considered as beneficial and helpful in enhancing students reading skills.

Peer Tutoring and Other Learning Settings

Hawkins, Musti-Rao, Hughes, Berry, and McGuire (2009) also applied the concept of peer tutoring to the context of classwide instruction (p. 300), although with regards to students’ multiplication fact fluency. Due to the fact that many classrooms across the country face the challenges of academic failure, there is a need for educational researchers to come with effective methods of instruction to enhance students academic achievement.

Classwide peer tutoring is an instruction model where students are paired by the teacher to work on various academic tasks, during which they should provide feedback on each other’s work and reinforce the practices of teaching and learning (Hawkins et al., 2009, p. 301).

The results of the study suggested that classwide peer tutoring had a positive effect on students’ math performance due to the reinforcement of reward contingencies that were actually used during the program’s implementation (Hawkins et al., 2009, p. 313). It is important to mention that the results of this study supported the previous findings that also suggested that students’ proficiency in math could be enhanced with the help of classwide peer tutoring. Thus, it can be concluded that the research was effective in supporting the overall benefits of peer tutoring, even in the context of math learning.

Ensergueix and Lafont (2011) had an objective of comparing the impact of two different forms of reciprocal peer tutoring (trained and spontaneous) on the cognitive and motor performance of adolescents in a physical education setting (p. 381). Furthermore, researchers integrated the concept of gender into the study to determine whether the motor and cognitive performance differ among males and females. With regard to the impact of learning conditions, trained reciprocal peer tutoring showed higher scores for both cognitive and motor performance compared to spontaneous, as found by Ensergueix and Lafont (2011, p. 393).

Such a finding can be explained by the fact that trained tutors tend to be more prepared and competent in determining errors during learning and giving advice in the context of many tutoring situations. Regarding the gender differences, it was expected that female participants would show lower motor outcomes compared to males; nevertheless, the research did not find a significant difference in CR scores despite the fact that males did outperform females in the AE scores (Ensergueix & Lafont, 2011, p. 394).

Nevertheless, despite the predictions, the results of the research did not show a significant difference between spontaneous reciprocal peer tutoring and the individual control conditions during both post-test; this does not align with the results of other experiments that concluded that the majority of students usually had better cognitive and motor performance during the dyadic practice compared to the individual (Ensergueix & Lafont, 2011, p. 393).

Concerning the benefits of peer tutoring, Comfort (2011) focused on discovering the effect of peer tutoring on academic achievement during practical assessments in applied sports science students (p. 207). According to the findings of the study, students that received peer tutoring showed better academic achievement compared to those students that were not peer tutored (Comfort, 2011, p. 209). These findings support the results of previous studies that showed that students that experienced peer tutoring usually improved their transferable skills and attained higher grades (Comfort, 2011, p. 209).

Comfort (2011) reached the results that show important implications for future research and the development of specific practical skills that will potentially help in enhancing students’ employability (especially in the areas of sports science) (p. 210). Because the undergraduate studies usually imply a lot of individual work and self-directed learning, there is a lack of structured feedback that leads to inadequate progress. Thus, the results of this study are similar to the ones discussed previously since it concluded that peer tutoring is an effective method for enhancing students’ achievement and eliminating the limitations of self-directed learning.

The purpose of the study would be to examine the impact of peer tutoring on international students with regard to enhancing their English language acquisition. In order to determine the effect, mixed-methods research will be conducted since the question calls for both qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data will come from surveys conducted with the 8-graders of a middle school, while qualitative data will come from interviews. The study will be correlational since it would study the connectedness between international students’ English language acquisition and the incorporation of peer tutoring instruction.

Context and Participants

Since middle school is a context that will allow the researcher to access a large population of students, it was chosen to conduct the experiment in the school setting. The GPA indicator will measure the success of international students’ achievement. For the sake of the study, international students with the GPA of 3.5 and greater will be asked to participate; it will also be important to ask for the help of teachers when it comes to conducting surveys for the reasons of discipline. Students’ nationality will not matter in the study – as long as the student came from a foreign country where English is not regarded as the first language, he or she will be included in the study.

Data Collection

Since the study will imply multiple methods, the data for the research will be collected through two procedures: questionnaires and surveys. First, to gather the necessary quantitative data, the researcher will compose a survey that would include questions regarding their attitudes to language acquisition, extra-curriculum activities targeted at enhancing their English, as well as how their families perceive the importance of learning the second language. Second, qualitative data will be collected through interviews with randomly selected students. The researcher will conduct focus group interviews with students and ask them open-ended questions regarding the effectiveness of the peer tutoring intervention conducted in the classroom, the outlook on future learning, as well as other questions on the topic.

Data Analysis

The researcher will conduct an inductive analysis of the collected data from interviews and questionnaires to find the common trends in students’ views on the effectiveness of peer tutoring in the context of English language learning. It is important to answer a question: “Is there a connection between peer tutoring instruction and the improvement of international students’ English language acquisition?” to answer this question, the researcher should determine whether students positively received the peer tutoring intervention and did their academic achievement in English improve (an increase of GPA).

Discussion of Possible Outcomes

As identified by the literature reviews, it is expected that peer tutoring will have a positive effect on academic outcomes; also, it is anticipated that it could also be beneficial for improving students’ behavioral outcomes. Because programs such as peer tutoring can have a positive contribution to both tutors’ and learners’ academic development, there was a need in continuing studying the pedagogical, social, and psychological variables associated with the improvement of teaching and learning within the context of different learning programs (Arco-Tirado et al., 2011, p. 784). Overall, the researcher expects that peer tutoring would benefit the students’ proficiency in English and help develop new language skills.

Arco-Tirado, J., Fernandez-Martin, F., & Fernandez-Balboa, J-M. (2011). The impact of peer-tutoring program on quality standards in higher education. High Education, 62, 773-788.

Bowman-Perrott, L., Davis, H., Vannest, K., Williams, L., Greenwood, C., & Parker, R. (2013). Academic benefits of peer tutoring: A meta-analytic review of single-case research. School Psychology Review, 41 (1), 39-55.

Bowman-Perrott, L., deMarin, S., Mahadevan, L., & Etchells, M. (2016). Assessing the academic, social, and language production outcomes of English language learners engaged in peer tutoring: A systematic review . Education and Treatment of Children, 39 (3), 359-388.

Comfort, P. (2011). The effect of peer tutoring on academic achievement during practical assessments in applied sports science students. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 48 (2), 207-211.

Ensergueix, P., & Lafont, L. (2011). Impact of trained versus spontaneous reciprocal peer tutoring on adolescent students. Journal of Applied Sports Psychology, 23 , 381-397.

Hawkins, R., Musti-Rao, S., Hughes, C., Berry, L., & McGuire, S. (2009). Applying a randomized interdependent group contingency component to classwide peer tutoring for multiplication fact fluency. Journal of Behavioral Education, 18 , 300-318.

Klingbeil, D., Moeyaert, M., Archer, C., Chimboza, T., & Zwolski Jr., S. (2017). Research into practice: Efficacy of peer-mediated incremental rehearsal for English language learners. School Psychology Review, 46 (1), 122-140.

Kourea, L., Cartledge, G., & Musti-Rao, S. (2007). Improving the reading skills of urban elementary students through total class tutoring. Remedial and Special Education, 28 (2), 95-107.

Mackiewicz, S., Wood, C., Cooke, N., & Mazzotti, V. (2010). Effects of peer tutoring with audio prompting on vocabulary acquisition for struggling readers. Remedial and Special Education, 20 (10), 1-10.

Neddenriep, C., Skinner, C., Wallace, M., & McCallum, E. (2009). ClassWide Peer Tutoring: Two experiments investigating the generalized relationship between increased oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 25 (3), 244-269.

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > How to Write an Insightful College Essay About Tutoring

How to Write an Insightful College Essay About Tutoring

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you’ve had a job tutoring others, you know that tutoring can be an impactful act of teaching and learning. It can also at times be gratifying, hilarious, or downright difficult.

As a college essay topic, tutoring experience can be an effective way to highlight your academic expertise and communication skills. Essays about tutoring can also be some of the most endearing when they discuss the tutor-tutee dynamic. In short, a college essay about tutoring can be a great topic to round out your application narrative .

But often students rely too heavily on overdone themes.

In this post, I lay out the three most common issues with college essays about tutoring and discuss what you can do instead.

When writing about tutoring others, a “love of helping and teaching” is not enough.

One of the most common tropes in personal statements about tutoring is a “love of helping others” or a “love of teaching.” Even if you’ve genuinely developed a love of helping or teaching, these themes alone are simply too common and generic to produce an insightful college essay.

Instead, try focusing on the critical pedagogical and communication skills you have developed while tutoring. Analyze the lessons you’ve learned to understand how they connect to your own experience as a student. Ask yourself how your work as a tutor has shaped your goals for the future.

Let’s say that your favorite student struggled with math, so you found a brilliant way to engage her in a new concept that resulted in her acing her next exam. You could write about how great it felt to help her or how much you loved teaching her.

But that topic doesn’t give the admissions committee very much to go on. A better approach would be to discuss what your strategy was, why you used it, and how it exhibits something wonderful about you.

By concentrating on what specifically has made you feel like a good teacher or helper, you can write an essay that showcases your love of helping and teaching while also demonstrating to your admissions officers your ability to think deeply and act with forethought and kindness.

Center yourself rather than your tutee when discussing your tutoring experience.

It’s only natural that you may want to write about a specific person you tutored when talking about your tutoring experience. The tutee is, after all, an integral half of the tutoring session. Forming good working relationships is part of being a good tutor, and the best tutor-tutee relationships have lasting impacts on both people.

But the heart of your college essay should not be about not the amazing or frustrating or brilliant student you tutored. It should be about you. Accomplish this by instead drawing attention to how your tutee affected you.

Perhaps the student you’ve connected with the most is one who was so shy he’d barely look at you in your first appointment. Although you may be so proud of the progress he made, your essay should not be about him. He’ll have his own turn to apply to college.

Discuss what you’ve learned from him, how you’ve been inspired by him, or how he reminds you about something about yourself. Maybe he taught you patience or bravery. Or maybe it was your work with him that led you to want to be a teacher or counselor.

Whatever your story is, it should be about you.

Talk about how your tutoring work makes you a good member of an academic community.

One of the reasons the “love of helping” essays don’t come across well to admissions officers, aside from being overdone, is that they can also read as arrogant. Your academic merits may have earned you your tutoring job, but the rest of your application will also show that you can excel in the classroom.

Instead, use your essay to convey to the admissions committee what a good academic community member you are. Highlight a time when you collaborated on a problem, when you were surprised at something you learned from your tutee, or when you had to work harder to be a better tutor.

Most schools would probably prefer to invite a curious and collaborative student to join their community over an arrogant and competitive one, so check your essay for tone.

You should come across as authoritative in your tutoring field but genuine in your recognition of the progress you have made and the lessons you still have left to learn.

Remember the importance of peer learning as you write and revise your own college essay about tutoring.

Finally, you were effective as a tutor not only because of your skills but also because there is inherent value in peer learning. Don’t forget to benefit from peer learning yourself by seeking out others who can read your college essay.

Having someone ask clarifying questions, evaluate the effectiveness of your approach, and identify your central message will only improve your essay.

Tutoring is hard work that takes great effort, skill, and persistence. What will make your college essay about tutoring insightful rather than generic is your ability to show your admissions officers why tutoring mattered to you and why your tutoring experience makes you a good fit for their school. The best essays will also tactfully reveal who you are as a person through your interactions with your tutee.

Ready to take your college essay to the next level? Check out our How to Write a College Essay guide.

Liked that? Try this next.

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The Benefits of Peer Tutoring

Peer tutoring is an instructional strategy that involves encouraging students to help each other learn. It’s as simple as it sounds, but don’t let its simplicity fool you. Peer tutoring has a profound impact on learning and can significantly enhance the educational experience.

Boosts Learning Comprehension and Communication

Firstly, peer tutoring boosts learning comprehension . When students explain concepts to their peers, they often have to simplify complex concepts, which in turn helps them understand the material better. Furthermore, students may find it easier to understand explanations from their peers, who might use language and examples that are more relatable.

Additionally peer tutoring is a great platform for students to enhance their communication skills. As they explain concepts and discuss ideas, they learn to articulate their thoughts clearly. This not only aids in academic performance but also prepares students for future endeavors where effective communication is key.

Promotes a Positive Learning Environment

Creating a positive learning environment is a crucial aspect of effective teaching, and peer tutoring contributes to this in spades. It fosters a sense of camaraderie among students, making the classroom a more collaborative and engaging space. Students feel more comfortable participating actively when they see their peers doing the same.

As students work together, they also learn to appreciate different perspectives and work styles. This can help drive social-emotional education and help students develop empathy. This understanding can go a long way in promoting respect and tolerance in the classroom.

Encourages Accountability

Lastly, peer tutoring encourages accountability. When students know they have to explain the material to others, they’re more motivated to grasp the material thoroughly. This sense of responsibility towards their learning and their peers’ learning can lead to improved academic performance.

Wrapping Up

To sum it up, peer tutoring is a highly beneficial instructional strategy that can significantly enrich the learning experience. It boosts learning comprehension, enhances communication skills, promotes a positive learning environment, develops empathy and understanding, and encourages accountability. So, educators, consider integrating peer tutoring into your teaching methods and observe the positive changes it brings.

Want more tips for your classroom? Check out other helpful educator blogs here on Numerade!

Rob Shield is based out of Columbus, Ohio. As Numerade's copywriter, Rob uses their extensive background in education to inform and shape the topics and content posted to the blog for educators, parents, and students alike.

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How to Implement Peer Tutoring in Your Classroom

by Model Teaching | June 19, 2023.

What is Peer tutoring?

Peer tutoring is a flexible grouping strategy where a student that excels academically is paired with a struggling student to reinforce academic skills or knowledge.

In peer tutoring, students from the same grade level assist and support their peers in learning specific academic subjects or skills. In peer tutoring, one student acts as the tutor or mentor, providing guidance and instruction to another student, the tutee or mentee. During this process, the teacher provides critical support and oversight of both the tutor and tutee, as well as training to the tutor.

The tutor, who will have a better grasp of the academic content, helps the tutee understand and master the material. Peer tutors will explain concepts, answer questions, provide examples, and offer feedback on assignments or tasks. Tutors often use active learning strategies, such as interactive discussions, collaborative activities, or hands-on demonstrations, to engage the tutee and enhance their understanding.

Peer tutoring offers several benefits for both tutors and tutees. For tutors, it reinforces their own learning as they explain concepts to others and strengthens their communication and leadership skills. Tutees benefit from personalized attention and support, often finding it easier to relate to and learn from their peers. Peer tutoring can foster a positive learning environment, promote academic achievement, and improve self-confidence and social skills for both students.

It is important to establish processes, provide support, and plan when choosing your tutor and tutee and it is important to consider several factors when deciding to use this strategy in your classroom. This blog post will provide you with an essential overview of several critical factors, concepts, and strategies to consider when considering peer tutoring for your students.

What Peer Tutoring Looks Like

What might Peer Tutoring look like in a classroom? It can take many forms, such as:

• In a math class, one student reteaches the day’s concept to another student in a one-on-one setting. This second reinforcement from a peer often helps the tutee grasp the new concept.
• In a history class, two students read a textbook chapter together. Often, a struggling reader needs to read and process written material with a peer so they can stop and discuss as questions arise.
• In a writing class, a peer tutor reads the writing of their tutee and helps them with mechanics and flow, particularly if the tutee is an ELL and needs extra language support.

As you can see, Peer Tutoring can take many forms and be applicable in any content area.

Benefits of Peer Tutoring

Peer tutoring can have many benefits for both the tutor and the tutee. Some of these benefits are summarized in the table below.

Peer Tutoring and Cooperative Learning

There may be a misconception that Peer Tutoring is equivalent to cooperative learning or group work. It can undoubtedly be considered one type of cooperative learning strategy, but it has very specific parameters that make it unique. There are several important differences between peer tutoring and cooperative learning, including:

Peer Tutoring:

Structure: Peer tutoring involves a one-on-one interaction between a more knowledgeable student (tutor) and a less knowledgeable student (tutee).

Roles: The tutor takes on the role of the teacher or guide, providing instruction, guidance, and support to the tutee.

Expertise: The tutor is typically more experienced or knowledgeable in the subject matter being taught and shares that expertise with the tutee.

Relationship: Peer tutoring often establishes a hierarchical relationship between the tutor and tutee, where the tutor assumes a more dominant role. Focus: The focus of peer tutoring is on addressing individual student needs, providing personalized attention, and promoting specific learning goals.

Cooperative Learning:

Structure: Cooperative learning involves small groups of students working together to achieve a common goal or complete a shared task.

Roles: Students within a cooperative learning group work collaboratively, taking on equal roles and responsibilities.

Interdependence: Cooperative learning emphasizes the interdependence among group members, meaning that each student’s success is tied to the success of the entire group.

Social Skills: Cooperative learning aims to develop social skills, such as communication, teamwork, conflict resolution, and academic skills.

Diversity: Cooperative learning encourages students with diverse abilities and backgrounds to work together, fostering peer support and mutual learning.

While both approaches involve student collaboration, peer tutoring focuses on individualized instruction and expertise transfer from a more knowledgeable peer to a less knowledgeable peer. On the other hand, cooperative learning emphasizes group dynamics, shared responsibility, and the development of both academic and social skills.

How Peer Tutoring Fits in with Cooperative Learning

Considerations When Choosing Tutors

Once a teacher has carefully selected the tutees that will benefit from peer tutoring, equal consideration must be given to selecting the tutors. Here are some qualities to take into consideration.

• A willingness to help. Peer tutors should be those students who go out of their way to help others.
• An outgoing and friendly personality. Tutors will probably have to initiate most of the conversations during a peer tutoring session, so these should be students who aren’t afraid to speak up.
• A sense of tact. Peer tutors must correct their tutee at times, so they need to find appropriate ways to do so.
• Good attendance record. A student who is frequently absent will not be able to help their partner on a consistent basis.
• Supportive families. Parents should be on the same page and be willing for their child to participate in peer tutoring.

The Peer Tutoring Strategies

Paragraph shrinking.

What is Paragraph Shrinking? Researchers at Vanderbilt University originally developed the Paragraph Shrinking strategy as one of several Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS). Paragraph shrinking involves taking a whole paragraph and shrinking it down to the most important idea through interactions between a “coach” and a “player”.

How does it help? This is a great peer tutoring strategy because it puts both students in equal roles. Even the tutee, who usually receives the extra help, gets a turn as the coach. It is a great way to build reading fluency, comprehension, and confidence. This strategy works best when the entire class has practiced the skill of paragraph shrinking beforehand.

What does it look like in the classroom? Peer tutoring partners take turns being the “coach” and the “player.” The player goes first and reads aloud for 5 minutes (or whatever length of time you designate). After each paragraph, they pause their reading and give an oral summary of the paragraph. Their summary should include the main idea and any supporting details. The coach can then offer assistance if the player struggles to summarize the paragraph or leaves off something important. After 5 minutes, they switch roles and go through the process again. They can use a worksheet like the one shown here as a written report of their work together so you can better monitor progress.

Paired Reading

What is Paired Reading? Paired reading is when two students are paired together for an oral reading task. The pairs either read along together or take turns reading to each other.

How does it help? Paired reading is a great peer tutoring strategy used to build reading fluency. The more students read aloud, the better and more fluent they become. When it comes to ELL students in particular, by pairing a fluent reader with a less fluent ELL, the ELL has the opportunity to listen to and follow along with an example of fluent reading. They also have the chance to practice their oral reading in an informal, non-threatening situation.

What does it look like in the classroom? For paired reading, the tutor and tutee each need a copy of the same book or text so they can follow along. They can take turns reading to each other, perhaps alternating paragraphs or pages. Another option is to read simultaneously, with the tutor aware he or she will likely need to slow the natural reading pace. Additionally, tutors should be trained to offer frequent feedback on errors and praise on success. The Cue Card resource shown here is an example of feedback ideas you can provide to your tutor.

Cooperative Writing

What is Cooperative Writing? Cooperative Writing as a peer tutoring strategy is simply when 2 students are paired up for a writing task to provide support to one another.

How does it help? Cooperative Writing is a great support strategy as it is an opportunity for stronger writers to help their peers who might struggle with writing. Students can share ideas and collaborate verbally on the writing before drafting, which takes some of the pressure off of the more struggling writer. It also helps to build the confidence of both students, encourages the growth of social skills, and helps to improve the sense of classroom community. What does it look like in the classroom?

During Cooperative Writing, the teacher assigns writing tasks to two students, and they take turns completing a writing task. The teacher may often provide some specific instructions like “Discuss in pairs _____ and then take turns responding to the prompt___.” Students then record their writing and check each other’s work. The student can then receive additional support in grammar or vocabulary usage from his or her writing buddy.

Peer Revising and Editing

What is Peer Revising and Editing? Peer Revising is when a fellow classmate examines the writing of another student and checks to see if the writing makes sense, addresses the prompt, and is well organized. Revising might also include looking for varied sentence beginnings and lengths, ensuring the writer does not overuse a word, or evaluating the writer’s use of descriptive language. Peer Editing is when the peer is specifically examining the writing for accurate writing conventions, including spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

How does it help? Revising and editing serve to polish a piece of writing, getting it ready for its final publication. Peer revising and editing are great strategies to use in class because they promote a sense of community and collaboration among students. By having a student revise or edit another student’s writing, the student will learn from her peer, and that is sometimes easier to take than having a teacher make a multitude of corrections.

What does it look like in the classroom? Peer revising and editing should be a back-and-forth conversation between the tutor (editor) and the tutee (writer). It might involve the writer reading his or her piece aloud to the peer revisor, and then the revisor giving feedback orally directly to the writer. This strategy works best when the tutor has a checklist, so they know exactly what they are looking for! You can provide students with peer revising or peer editing checklists to help keep them on task for a successful tutoring session.

Rally Coach

What is Rally Coach? Rally Coach is a cooperative learning structure developed by the Kagan Publishing Company. Rally Coach works best with procedural learning when students need to follow specific steps to complete a task or solve a problem. Students operate as players and coaches when utilizing this strategy.

How does it help? This strategy works well because tutors or coaches are scaffolding the tutee’s or player’s existing knowledge. They coach gives the player prompts to help the player reach the next step on his or her own. Between that and frequent positive feedback, the player’s confidence builds, becoming more willing to try the work independently.

What does it look like in the classroom? In Rally Coach, students are either the coach (tutor) or the player (tutee). The coach observes while the player solves a problem, discussing their thought process. If the player struggles, the coach can intervene and offer a tip. If the player is doing well, the coach should praise the player frequently. Students can switch roles, or you can have your tutor always remain in the coach role. You can give students a worksheet of problems to solve as they practice this strategy.

Model Building

What is Model Building? Model building is another math strategy that utilizes manipulatives to help students solve problems. This strategy involves thoughtful planning on the part of the tutor to examine the problems and think about what tools can be used to make the learning concrete and serve as a visual aid for the tutee.

How does it help? Model building is effective because it takes abstract math concepts and turns them into a concrete, visual learning experience. This visual aid is often all that is needed to make the learning click for your students.

What does it look like in the classroom? With model building, the tutor should know ahead of time what types of problems they are working on and have an idea of what manipulatives will be helpful. For example, if students are learning how to calculate the area of a rectangle, simple grid paper and colored pencils for shading would be a great tool. If they are learning multiplication, having a large pile of counters to place in equal groups would be helpful.

Progress Monitoring As with any new strategy you implement as a classroom teacher, you want to monitor the outcomes to determine its level of effectiveness. Regular progress monitoring lets you quickly see when something is ineffective and you need to make changes or try a completely different strategy.

The most important thing to remember with peer tutoring is that you want to see progress made. It is better to observe steady progress than to expect a specific level of achievement by a certain date or after a certain number of peer tutoring sessions.

While ultimately, the progress monitoring is your responsibility, tutors and tutees can certainly play an important role. Therefore, we will discuss each of their roles in greater detail.

The Tutor’s Role in Progress Monitoring

• Completing a Peer Tutoring Log for each session
• Completing a self-reflection every few sessions
• Meeting with the teacher as needed to discuss their logs and reflections

The Tutee’s Role in Progress Monitoring

• Maintaining a positive and cooperative attitude during each tutoring session.
• Completing the Peer Tutee Self-Reflection
• Meeting with the teacher as needed to discuss their progress and reflections

The Teacher’s Role in Progress Monitoring

• Training each peer tutor on the most appropriate strategies to use
• Meeting with tutors regularly to ensure they are preparing for each session and to review their self-reflections
• Meeting with tutees regularly to ensure they are making progress and are comfortable partnering with their tutor
• Troubleshooting as necessary when tutees are not making adequate progress or when tutor/tutee partnerships are not a good fit
• Tracking data to ensure academic progress is being made

As you have learned in this article, there are numerous benefits to a well-planned peer tutoring program. However, it is essential to remember that tutoring is only one piece of the instructional puzzle and should not be used as the primary method of instruction for your students.

With careful selection of candidates, thorough training of tutors, specific goal setting, appropriate strategy selection, and constant progress monitoring, peer tutoring can be an excellent way to increase the academic skills of your students.

Related Professional Development Courses:

Peer Tutoring for English Language Learners

(8 PD Hour) This course will explain the benefits of implementing peer tutoring strategies with ELLs and give participants several easy-to-implement strategies for pairing fluent English speakers with ELLs that they can implement at any grade level and in any content area.

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A LITERATURE REVIEW ON ‘PEER TUTORING’.

This work is a 'literature review on Peer Tutoring'. In this article, I explained the meaning and models of Peer Tutoring and did a brief history on it. I also explained

Related Papers

ELT Journal

This article gives an overview of a piece of qualitative research conducted at a women’s university in the United Arab Emirates. The aim of the study was to evaluate the English language peer tutoring programme in order to highlight benefits and challenges, and to make informed improvements. The study drew particularly on participant perceptions and observations of the programme. It identified various benefits for tutors such as learning through teaching and becoming more responsible while doing something worthwhile to help others. Benefits for tutees included improved levels of self-confidence and English language aptitude. The study also highlighted several challenges associated with the high dependence and low metacognitive awareness demonstrated by the tutees. In addition, tutors were not always able to offer appropriate assistance. Improvements to the programme could include increasing faculty involvement, improving tutee awareness of the aims of the programme, and providing additional assistance to tutors.

Rafika Mayasari

International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies

VASSILIKI PLIOGOU

Peer tutoring has been implemented for two academic years (2017 - 18 and 2018 - 19) to a course and the internship of a postgraduate program of the Department of Education Sciences in Early Childhood of the Democritus University of Thrace. Until now fourteen students (eight tutees and six tutors) have been involved to the method. The purpose of this qualitative study is to research the tutees’ difficulties that were faced with tutoring and the difficulties of the tutors in applying the method, as well as the ways in which they were dealt with. Therefore, this research helps to highlight the importance of this method for the academic development of undergraduate and postgraduate students of the particular University Department and helps to collect data that could support the further development of the method itself in the Department.

Ecu Publications Pre 2011

Joseph Luca

Najabat Ali

The study attempts to investigate the concept of peer tutoring and its impact on learning. Peer tutoring can be applied among the students of the same age group or students from different age groups. The students learn from each other in an organized way through the process. It is a well-organized and beneficial learning experience in which one-student acts as the tutor or teacher and the other one serves as the tutee or learner. Peer tutoring creates an opportunity for the students to utilize their knowledge and experience in a meaningful way. In this process the tutors reinforce their own learning through reviewing and reformulating their knowledge. On the other hand, the learner or tutee gets one on one attention. Peer tutoring enables both tutor and tutee to gain self-confidence, the tutor by observing self-competence in his or her capability to help someone and the tutee by gaining positive reinforcement from the peers. Therefore, peer tutoring has a very positive impact on the process of learning.

Luísa Soares

Purpose – Tutoring or mentoring is a form of mutual and informal learning which has distant origins. This is a way of sharing knowledge and experience which has been proved to be extremely useful in educational settings, particularly where there is a peer that plays the role of tutor. Despite its informal characteristic, tutoring should be a structured process, with defined goals and clear roles for both: tutors and tutees, those who benefit from tutoring. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – As this paper aims to explore a pilot project, it was used as a reflexive and practical methodology, in a case study, analyzing the number of participants attending the project as well as the contents of the training course. Findings – In this first project in a Portuguese university, 35 students attended as candidates to tutor, participating in the training course, showing interest in helping their colleagues. Originality/value – This proposal for a tutoring program in a public higher institution aims to train college students to help other colleagues, giving academic support, helping in the adaptation to academic context, promoting autonomy in learning, sharing effective strategies and helping in maintenance of positive interpersonal relationships. These aspects are very important to promote academic success in higher education.

Andrea Chester , Tim Outhred

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BMC Medical …

Liam Glynn , Maureen Kelly

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• Original article
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• Published: 09 April 2020

Why does peer instruction benefit student learning?

• Jonathan G. Tullis 1 &
• Robert L. Goldstone 2  

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications volume  5 , Article number:  15 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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In peer instruction, instructors pose a challenging question to students, students answer the question individually, students work with a partner in the class to discuss their answers, and finally students answer the question again. A large body of evidence shows that peer instruction benefits student learning. To determine the mechanism for these benefits, we collected semester-long data from six classes, involving a total of 208 undergraduate students being asked a total of 86 different questions related to their course content. For each question, students chose their answer individually, reported their confidence, discussed their answers with their partner, and then indicated their possibly revised answer and confidence again. Overall, students were more accurate and confident after discussion than before. Initially correct students were more likely to keep their answers than initially incorrect students, and this tendency was partially but not completely attributable to differences in confidence. We discuss the benefits of peer instruction in terms of differences in the coherence of explanations, social learning, and the contextual factors that influence confidence and accuracy.

Significance

Peer instruction is widely used in physics instruction across many universities. Here, we examine how peer instruction, or discussing one’s answer with a peer, affects students’ decisions about a class assignment. Across six different university classes, students answered a question, discussed their answer with a peer, and finally answered the question again. Students’ accuracy consistently improved through discussion with a peer. Our peer instruction data show that students were hesitant to switch away from their initial answer and that students did consider both their own confidence and their partner’s confidence when making their final decision, in accord with basic research about confidence in decision making. More broadly, the data reveal that peer discussion helped students select the correct answer by prompting them to create new knowledge. The benefit to student accuracy that arises when students discuss their answers with a partner is a “process gain”, in which working in a group yields better performance than can be predicted from individuals’ performance alone.

Peer instruction is specific evidence-based instructional strategy that is well-known and widely used, particularly in physics (Henderson & Dancy, 2009 ). In fact, peer instruction has been advocated as a part of best methods in science classrooms (Beatty, Gerace, Leonard, & Dufresne, 2006 ; Caldwell, 2007 ; Crouch & Mazur, 2001 ; Newbury & Heiner, 2012 ; Wieman et al., 2009 ) and over a quarter of university physics professors report using peer instruction (Henderson & Dancy, 2009 ). In peer instruction, instructors pose a challenging question to students, students answer the question individually, students discuss their answers with a peer in the class, and finally students answer the question again. There are variations of peer instruction in which instructors show the class’s distribution of answers before discussion (Nielsen, Hansen-Nygård, & Stav, 2012 ; Perez et al., 2010 ), in which students’ answers are graded for participation or for correctness (James, 2006 ), and in which instructors’ norms affect whether peer instruction offers opportunities for answer-seeking or for sense-making (Turpen & Finkelstein, 2007 ).

Despite wide variations in its implementation, peer instruction consistently benefits student learning. Switching classroom structure from didactic lectures to one centered around peer instruction improves learners’ conceptual understanding (Duncan, 2005 ; Mazur, 1997 ), reduces student attrition in difficult courses (Lasry, Mazur, & Watkins, 2008 ), decreases failure rates (Porter, Bailey-Lee, & Simon, 2013 ), improves student attendance (Deslauriers, Schelew, & Wieman, 2011 ), and bolsters student engagement (Lucas, 2009 ) and attitudes to their course (Beekes, 2006 ). Benefits of peer instruction have been found across many fields, including physics (Mazur, 1997 ; Pollock, Chasteen, Dubson, & Perkins, 2010 ), biology (Knight, Wise, & Southard, 2013 ; Smith, Wood, Krauter, & Knight, 2011 ), chemistry (Brooks & Koretsky, 2011 ), physiology (Cortright, Collins, & DiCarlo, 2005 ; Rao & DiCarlo, 2000 ), calculus (Lucas, 2009 ; Miller, Santana-Vega, & Terrell, 2007 ), computer science (Porter et al., 2013 ), entomology (Jones, Antonenko, & Greenwood, 2012 ), and even philosophy (Butchart, Handfield, & Restall, 2009 ). Additionally, benefits of peer instruction have been found at prestigious private universities, two-year community colleges (Lasry et al., 2008 ), and even high schools (Cummings & Roberts, 2008 ). Peer instruction benefits not just the specific questions posed during discussion, but also improves accuracy on later similar problems (e.g., Smith et al., 2009 ).

One of the consistent empirical hallmarks of peer instruction is that students’ answers are more frequently correct following discussion than preceding it. For example, in introductory computer science courses, post-discussion performance was higher on 70 out of 71 questions throughout the semester (Simon, Kohanfars, Lee, Tamayo, & Cutts, 2010 ). Further, gains in performance from discussion are found on many different types of questions, including recall, application, and synthesis questions (Rao & DiCarlo, 2000 ). Performance improvements are found because students are more likely to switch from an incorrect answer to the correct answer than from the correct answer to an incorrect answer. In physics, 59% of incorrect answers switched to correct following discussion, but only 13% of correct answers switched to incorrect (Crouch & Mazur, 2001 ). Other research on peer instruction shows the same patterns: 41% of incorrect answers are switched to correct ones, while only 18% of correct answers are switched to incorrect (Morgan & Wakefield, 2012 ). On qualitative problem-solving questions in physiology, 57% of incorrect answers switched to correct after discussion, and only 7% of correct answers to incorrect (Giuliodori, Lujan, & DiCarlo, 2006 ).

There are two explanations for improvements in pre-discussion to post-discussion accuracy. First, switches from incorrect to correct answers may be driven by selecting the answer from the peer who is more confident. When students discuss answers that disagree, they may choose whichever answer belongs to the more confident peer. Evidence about decision-making and advice-taking substantiates this account. First, confidence is correlated with correctness across many settings and procedures (Finley, Tullis, & Benjamin, 2010 ). Students who are more confident in their answers are typically more likely to be correct. Second, research examining decision-making and advice-taking indicates that (1) the less confident you are, the more you value others’ opinions (Granovskiy, Gold, Sumpter, & Goldstone, 2015 ; Harvey & Fischer, 1997 ; Yaniv, 2004a , 2004b ; Yaniv & Choshen-Hillel, 2012 ) and (2) the more confident the advisor is, the more strongly they influence your decision (Kuhn & Sniezek, 1996 ; Price & Stone, 2004 ; Sah, Moore, & MacCoun, 2013 ; Sniezek & Buckley, 1995 ; Van Swol & Sniezek, 2005 ; Yaniv, 2004b ). Consequently, if students simply choose their final answer based upon whoever is more confident, accuracy should increase from pre-discussion to post-discussion. This explanation suggests that switches in answers should be driven entirely by a combination of one’s own initial confidence and one’s partner’s confidence. In accord with this confidence view, Koriat ( 2015 ) shows that an individual’s confidence typically reflects the group’s most typically given answer. When the answer most often given by group members is incorrect, peer interactions amplify the selection of and confidence in incorrect answers. Correct answers have no special draw. Rather, peer instruction merely amplifies the dominant view through differences in the individual’s confidence.

In a second explanation, working with others may prompt students to verbalize explanations and verbalizations may generate new knowledge. More specifically, as students discuss the questions, they need to create a common representation of the problem and answer. Generating a common representation may compel students to identify gaps in their existing knowledge and construct new knowledge (Schwartz, 1995 ). Further, peer discussion may promote students’ metacognitive processes of detecting and correcting errors in their mental models. Students create more new knowledge and better diagnostic tests of answers together than alone. Ultimately, then, the new knowledge and improved metacognition may make the correct answer appear more compelling or coherent than incorrect options. Peer discussion would draw attention to coherent or compelling answers, more so than students’ initial confidence alone and the coherence of the correct answer would prompt students to switch away from incorrect answers. Similarly, Trouche, Sander, and Mercier ( 2014 ) argue that interactions in a group prompt argumentation and discussion of reasoning. Good arguments and reasoning should be more compelling to change individuals’ answers than confidence alone. Indeed, in a reasoning task known to benefit from careful deliberation, good arguments and the correctness of the answers change partners’ minds more than confidence in one’s answer (Trouche et al., 2014 ). This explanation predicts several distinct patterns of data. First, as seen in prior research, more students should switch from incorrect answers to correct than vice versa. Second, the intrinsic coherence of the correct answer should attract students, so the likelihood of switching answers would be predicted by the correctness of an answer above and beyond differences in initial confidence. Third, initial confidence in an answer should not be as tightly related to initial accuracy as final confidence is to final accuracy because peer discussion should provide a strong test of the coherence of students’ answers. Fourth, because the coherence of an answer is revealed through peer discussion, student confidence should increase more from pre-discussion to post-discussion when they agree on the correct answers compared to agreeing on incorrect answers.

Here, we examined the predictions of these two explanations of peer instruction across six different classes. We specifically examined whether changes in answers are driven exclusively through the confidence of the peers during discussion or whether the coherence of an answer is better constructed and revealed through peer instruction than on one’s own. We are interested in analyzing cognitive processes at work in a specific, but common, implementation of classroom-based peer instruction; we do not intend to make general claims about all kinds of peer instruction or to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of peer instruction. This research is the first to analyze how confidence in one’s answer relates to answer-switching during peer instruction and tests the impact of peer instruction in new domains (i.e., psychology and educational psychology classes).

Participants

Students in six different classes participated as part of their normal class procedures. More details about these classes are presented in Table  1 . The authors served as instructors for these classes. Across the six classes, 208 students contributed a total of 1657 full responses to 86 different questions.

The instructors of the courses developed multiple-choice questions related to the ongoing course content. Questions were aimed at testing students’ conceptual understanding, rather than factual knowledge. Consequently, questions often tested whether students could apply ideas to new settings or contexts. An example of a cognitive psychology question used is: Which is a fixed action pattern (not a reflex)?

Knee jerks up when patella is hit

Male bowerbirds building elaborate nests [correct]

Eye blinks when air is blown on it

Can play well learned song on guitar even when in conversation

The procedures for peer instruction across the six different classes followed similar patterns. Students were presented with a multiple-choice question. First, students read the question on their own, chose their answer, and reported their confidence in their answer on a scale of 1 “Not at all confident” to 10 “Highly confident”. Students then paired up with a neighbor in their class and discussed the question with their peer. After discussion, students answered the question and reported the confidence for a second time. The course instructor indicated the correct answer and discussed the reasoning for the answer after all final answers had been submitted. Instruction was paced based upon how quickly students read and answered questions. Most student responses counted towards their participation grade, regardless of the correctness of their answer (the last question in each of the cognitive psychology classes was graded for correctness).

There were small differences in procedures between classes. Students in the cognitive psychology classes input their responses using classroom clickers, but those in other classes wrote their responses on paper. Further, students in the cognitive psychology classes explicitly reported their partner’s answer and confidence, while students in other classes only reported the name of their partner (the partners’ data were aligned during data recording). The cognitive psychology students then were required to mention their own answer and their confidence to their partner during peer instruction; students in other classes were not required to tell their answer or their confidence to their peer. Finally, the questions appeared at any point during the class period for the cognitive psychology classes, while the questions typically happened at the beginning of each class for the other classes.

Analytic strategy

Data are available on the OpenScienceFramework: https://mfr.osf.io/render?url=https://osf.io/5qc46/?action=download%26mode=render .

For most of our analyses we used linear mixed-effects models (Baayen, Davidson, & Bates, 2008 ; Murayama, Sakaki, Yan, & Smith, 2014 ). The unit of analysis in a mixed-effect model is the outcome of a single trial (e.g., whether or not a particular question was answered correctly by a particular participant). We modeled these individual trial-level outcomes as a function of multiple fixed effects - those of theoretical interest - and multiple random effects - effects for which the observed levels are sampled out of a larger population (e.g., questions, students, and classes sampled out of a population of potential questions, students, and classes).

Linear mixed-effects models solve four statistical problems involved with the data of peer instruction. First, there is large variability in students’ performance and the difficulty of questions across students and classes. Mixed-effect models simultaneously account for random variation both across participants and across items (Baayen et al., 2008 ; Murayama et al., 2014 ). Second, students may miss individual classes and therefore may not provide data across every item. Similarly, classes varied in how many peer instruction questions were posed throughout the semester and the number of students enrolled. Mixed-effects models weight each response equally when drawing conclusions (rather than weighting each student or question equally) and can easily accommodate missing data. Third, we were interested in how several different characteristics influenced students’ performance. Mixed effects models can include multiple predictors simultaneously, which allows us to test the effect of one predictor while controlling for others. Finally, mixed effects models can predict the log odds (or logit) of a correct answer, which is needed when examining binary outcomes (i.e., correct or incorrect; Jaeger, 2008 ).

We fit all models in R using the lmer() function of the lme4 package (Bates, Maechler, Bolker, & Walker, 2015 ). For each mixed-effect model, we included random intercepts that capture baseline differences in difficulty of questions, in classes, and in students, in addition to multiple fixed effects of theoretical interest. In mixed-effect models with hundreds of observations, the t distribution effectively converges to the normal, so we compared the t statistic to the normal distribution for analyses involving continuous outcomes (i.e., confidence; Baayen, 2008 ). P values can be directly obtained from Wald z statistics for models with binary outcomes (i.e., correctness).

Does accuracy change through discussion?

First, we examined how correctness changed across peer discussion. A logit model predicting correctness from time point (pre-discussion to post-discussion) revealed that the odds of correctness increased by 1.57 times (95% confidence interval (conf) 1.31–1.87) from pre-discussion to post-discussion, as shown in Table  2 . In fact, 88% of students showed an increase or no change in accuracy from pre-discussion to post-discussion. Pre-discussion to post-discussion performance for each class is shown in Table  3 . We further examined how accuracy changed from pre-discussion to post-discussion for each question and the results are plotted in Fig.  1 . The data show a consistent improvement in accuracy from pre-discussion to post-discussion across all levels of initial difficulty.

The relationship between pre-discussion accuracy (x axis) and post-discussion accuracy (y axis). Each point represents a single question. The solid diagonal line represents equal pre-discussion and post-discussion accuracy; points above the line indicate improvements in accuracy and points below represent decrements in accuracy. The dashed line indicates the line of best fit for the observed data

We examined how performance increased from pre-discussion to post-discussion by tracing the correctness of answers through the discussion. Figure  2 tracks the percent (and number of items) correct from pre-discussion to post-discussion. The top row shows whether students were initially correct or incorrect in their answer; the middle row shows whether students agreed or disagreed with their partner; the last row show whether students were correct or incorrect after discussion. Additionally, Fig. 2 shows the confidence associated with each pathway. The bottow line of each entry shows the students’ average confidence; in the middle white row, the confidence reported is the average of the peer’s confidence.

The pathways of answers from pre-discussion (top row) to post-discussion (bottom row). Percentages indicate the portion of items from the category immediately above in that category, the numbers in brackets indicate the raw numbers of items, and the numbers at the bottom of each entry indicate the confidence associated with those items. In the middle, white row, confidence values show the peer’s confidence. Turquoise indicates incorrect answers and yellow indicates correct answers

Broadly, only 5% of correct answers were switched to incorrect, while 28% of incorrect answers were switched to correct following discussion. Even for the items in which students were initially correct but disagreed with their partner, only 21% of answers were changed to incorrect answers after discussion. However, out of the items where students were initially incorrect and disagreed with their partner, 42% were changed to the correct answer.

Does confidence predict switching?

Differences in the amount of switching to correct or incorrect answers could be driven solely by differences in confidence, as described in our first theory mentioned earlier. For this theory to hold, answers with greater confidence must have a greater likelihood of being correct. To examine whether initial confidence is associated with initial correctness, we calculated the gamma correlation between correctness and confidence in the answer before discussion, as shown in the first column of Table  4 . The average gamma correlation between initial confidence and initial correctness (mean (M) = 0.40) was greater than zero, t (160) = 8.59, p  < 0.001, d  = 0.68, indicating that greater confidence was associated with being correct.

Changing from an incorrect to a correct answer, then, may be driven entirely by selecting the answer from the peer with the greater confidence during discussion, even though most of the students in our sample were not required to explicitly disclose their confidence to their partner during discussion. We examined how frequently students choose the more confident answer when peers disagree. When peers disagreed, students’ final answers aligned with the more confident peer only 58% of the time. Similarly, we tested what the performance would be if peers always picked the answer of the more confident peer. If peers always chose the more confident answer during discussion, the final accuracy would be 69%, which is significantly lower than actual final accuracy (M = 72%, t (207) = 2.59, p  = 0.01, d  = 0.18). While initial confidence is related to accuracy, these results show that confidence is not the only predictor of switching answers.

Does correctness predict switching beyond confidence?

Discussion may reveal information about the correctness of answers by generating new knowledge and testing the coherence of each possible answer. To test whether the correctness of an answer added predictive power beyond the confidence of the peers involved in discussion, we analyzed situations in which students disagreed with their partner. Out of the instances when partners initially disagreed, we predicted the likelihood of keeping one’s answer based upon one’s own confidence, the partner’s confidence, and whether one’s answer was initially correct. The results of a model predicting whether students keep their answers is shown in Table  5 . For each increase in a point of one’s own confidence, the odds of keeping one’s answer increases 1.25 times (95% conf 1.13–1.38). For each decrease in a point of the partner’s confidence, the odds of keeping one’s answer increased 1.19 times (1.08–1.32). The beta weight for one’s confidence did not differ from the beta weight of the partner’s confidence, χ 2  = 0.49, p  = 0.48. Finally, if one’s own answer was correct, the odds of keeping one’s answer increased 4.48 times (2.92–6.89). In other words, the more confident students were, the more likely they were to keep their answer; the more confident their peer was, the more likely they were to change their answer; and finally, if a student was correct, they were more likely to keep their answer.

To illustrate this relationship, we plotted the probability of keeping one’s own answer as a function of the difference between one’s own and their partner’s confidence for initially correct and incorrect answers. As shown in Fig.  3 , at every confidence level, being correct led to equal or more frequently keeping one’s answer than being incorrect.

The probability of keeping one’s answer in situations where one’s partner initially disagreed as a function of the difference between partners’ levels of confidence. Error bars indicate the standard error of the proportion and are not shown when the data are based upon a single data point

As another measure of whether discussion allows learners to test the coherence of the correct answer, we analyzed how discussion impacted confidence when partners’ answers agreed. We predicted confidence in answers by the interaction of time point (i.e., pre-discussion versus post-discussion) and being initially correct for situations in which peers initially agreed on their answer. The results, displayed in Table  6 , show that confidence increased from pre-discussion to post-discussion by 1.08 points and that confidence was greater for initially correct answers (than incorrect answers) by 0.78 points. As the interaction between time point and initial correctness shows, confidence increased more from pre-discussion to post-discussion when students were initially correct (as compared to initially incorrect). To illustrate this relationship, we plotted pre-confidence against post-confidence for initially correct and initially incorrect answers when peers agreed (Fig.  4 ). Each plotted point represents a student; the diagonal blue line indicates no change between pre-confidence and post-confidence. The graph reflects that confidence increases more from pre-discussion to post-discussion for correct answers than for incorrect answers, even when we only consider cases where peers agreed.

The relationship between pre-discussion and post-discussion confidence as a function of the accuracy of an answer when partners agreed. Each dot represents a student

If students engage in more comprehensive answer testing during discussion than before, the relationship between confidence in their answer and the accuracy of their answer should be stronger following discussion than it is before. We examined whether confidence accurately reflected correctness before and after discussion. To do so, we calculated the gamma correlation between confidence and accuracy, as is typically reported in the literature on metacognitive monitoring (e.g., Son & Metcalfe, 2000 ; Tullis & Fraundorf, 2017 ). Across all students, the resolution of metacognitive monitoring increases from pre-discussion to post-discussion ( t (139) = 2.98, p  = 0.003, d  = 0.24; for a breakdown of gamma calculations for each class, see Table 4 ). Confidence was more accurately aligned with accuracy following discussion than preceding it. The resolution between student confidence and correctness increases through discussion, suggesting that discussion offers better coherence testing than answering alone.

To examine why peer instruction benefits student learning, we analyzed student answers and confidence before and after discussion across six psychology classes. Discussing a question with a partner improved accuracy across classes and grade levels with small to medium-sized effects. Questions of all difficulty levels benefited from peer discussion; even questions where less than half of students originally answered correctly saw improvements from discussion. Benefits across the spectrum of question difficulty align with prior research showing improvements when even very few students initially know the correct answer (Smith et al., 2009 ). More students switched from incorrect answers to correct answers than vice versa, leading to an improvement in accuracy following discussion. Answer switching was driven by a student’s own confidence in their answer and their partner’s confidence. Greater confidence in one’s answer indicated a greater likelihood of keeping the answer; a partner’s greater confidence increased the likelihood of changing to their answer.

Switching answers depended on more than just confidence: even when accounting for students’ confidence levels, the correctness of the answer impacted switching behavior. Across several measures, our data showed that the correctness of an answer carried weight beyond confidence. For example, the correctness of the answer predicted whether students switched their initial answer during peer disagreements, even after taking the confidence of both partners into account. Further, students’ confidence increased more when partners agreed on the correct answer compared to when they agreed on an incorrect answer. Finally, although confidence increased from pre-discussion to post-discussion when students changed their answers from incorrect to the correct ones, confidence decreased when students changed their answer away from the correct one. A plausible interpretation of this difference is that when students switch from a correct answer to an incorrect one, their decrease in confidence reflects the poor coherence of their final incorrect selection.

Whether peer instruction resulted in optimal switching behaviors is debatable. While accuracy improved through discussion, final accuracy was worse than if students had optimally switched their answers during discussion. If students had chosen the correct answer whenever one of the partners initially chose it, the final accuracy would have been significantly higher (M = 0.80 (SD = 0.19)) than in our data (M = 0.72 (SD = 0.24), t (207) = 6.49, p  < 0.001, d  = 0.45). While this might be interpreted as “process loss” (Steiner, 1972 ; Weldon & Bellinger, 1997 ), that would assume that there is sufficient information contained within the dyad to ascertain the correct answer. One individual selecting the correct answer is inadequate for this claim because they may not have a compelling justification for their answer. When we account for differences in initial confidence, students’ final accuracy was better than expected. Students’ final accuracy was better than that predicted from a model in which students always choose the answer of the more confident peer. This over-performance, often called “process gain”, can sometimes emerge when individuals collaborate to create or generate new knowledge (Laughlin, Bonner, & Miner, 2002 ; Michaelsen, Watson, & Black, 1989 ; Sniezek & Henry, 1989 ; Tindale & Sheffey, 2002 ). Final accuracy reveals that students did not simply choose the answer of the more confident student during discussion; instead, students more thoroughly probed the coherence of answers and mental models during discussion than they could do alone.

Students’ final accuracy emerges from the interaction between the pairs of students, rather than solely from individuals’ sequestered knowledge prior to discussion (e.g. Wegner, Giuliano, & Hertel, 1985 ). Schwartz ( 1995 ) details four specific cognitive products that can emerge through working in dyads. Specifically, dyads force verbalization of ideas through discussion, and this verbalization facilitates generating new knowledge. Students may not create a coherent explanation of their answer until they engage in discussion with a peer. When students create a verbal explanation of their answer to discuss with a peer, they can identify knowledge gaps and construct new knowledge to fill those gaps. Prior research examining the content of peer interactions during argumentation in upper-level biology classes has shown that these kinds of co-construction happen frequently; over three quarters of statements during discussion involve an exchange of claims and reasoning to support those claims (Knight et al., 2013 ). Second, dyads have more information processing resources than individuals, so they can solve more complex problems. Third, dyads may foster greater motivation than individuals. Finally, dyads may stimulate the creation of new, abstract representations of knowledge, above and beyond what one would expect from the level of abstraction created by individuals. Students need to communicate with their partner; to create common ground and facilitate discourse, dyads negotiate common representations to coordinate different perspectives. The common representations bridge multiple perspectives, so they lose idiosyncratic surface features of individuals’ representation. Working in pairs generates new knowledge and tests of answers that could not be predicted from individuals’ performance alone.

More broadly, teachers often put students in groups so that they can learn from each other by giving and receiving help, recognizing contradictions between their own and others’ perspectives, and constructing new understandings from divergent ideas (Bearison, Magzamen, & Filardo, 1986 ; Bossert, 1988-1989 ; Brown & Palincsar, 1989 ; Webb & Palincsar, 1996 ). Giving explanations to a peer may encourage explainers to clarify or reorganize information, recognize and rectify gaps in understandings, and build more elaborate interpretations of knowledge than they would have alone (Bargh & Schul, 1980 ; Benware & Deci, 1984 ; King, 1992 ; Yackel, Cobb, & Wood, 1991 ). Prompting students to explain why and how problems are solved facilitates conceptual learning more than reading the problem solutions twice without self-explanations (Chi, de Leeuw, Chiu, & LaVancher, 1994 ; Rittle-Johnson, 2006 ; Wong, Lawson, & Keeves, 2002 ). Self-explanations can prompt students to retrieve, integrate, and modify their knowledge with new knowledge; self-explanations can also help students identify gaps in their knowledge (Bielaczyc, Pirolli, & Brown, 1995 ; Chi & Bassock, 1989 ; Chi, Bassock, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989 ; Renkl, Stark, Gruber, & Mandl, 1998 ; VanLehn, Jones, & Chi, 1992 ; Wong et al., 2002 ), detect and correct errors, and facilitate deeper understanding of conceptual knowledge (Aleven & Koedinger, 2002 ; Atkinson, Renkl, & Merrill, 2003 ; Chi & VanLehn, 2010 ; Graesser, McNamara, & VanLehn, 2005 ). Peer instruction, while leveraging these benefits of self-explanation, also goes beyond them by involving what might be called “other-explanation” processes - processes recruited not just when explaining a situation to oneself but to others. Mercier and Sperber ( 2019 ) argue that much of human reason is the result of generating explanations that will be convincing to other members of one’s community, thereby compelling others to act in the way that one wants.

Conversely, students receiving explanations can fill in gaps in their own understanding, correct misconceptions, and construct new, lasting knowledge. Fellow students may be particularly effective explainers because they can better take the perspective of their peer than the teacher (Priniski & Horne, 2019 ; Ryskin, Benjamin, Tullis, & Brown-Schmidt, 2015 ; Tullis, 2018 ). Peers may be better able than expert teachers to explain concepts in familiar terms and direct peers’ attention to the relevant features of questions that they do not understand (Brown & Palincsar, 1989 ; Noddings, 1985 ; Vedder, 1985 ; Vygotsky, 1981 ).

Peer instruction may benefit from the generation of explanations, but social influences may compound those benefits. Social interactions may help students monitor and regulate their cognition better than self-explanations alone (e.g., Jarvela et al., 2015 ; Kirschner, Kreijns, Phielix, & Fransen, 2015 ; Kreijns, Kirschner, & Vermeulen, 2013 ; Phielix, Prins, & Kirschner, 2010 ; Phielix, Prins, Kirschner, Erkens, & Jaspers, 2011 ). Peers may be able to judge the quality of the explanation better than the explainer. In fact, recent research suggests that peer instruction facilitates learning even more than self-explanations (Versteeg, van Blankenstein, Putter, & Steendijk, 2019 ).

Not only does peer instruction generate new knowledge, but it may also improve students’ metacognition. Our data show that peer discussion prompted more thorough testing of the coherence of the answers. Specifically, students’ confidences were better aligned with accuracy following discussion than before. Improvements in metacognitive resolution indicate that discussion provides more thorough testing of answers and ideas than does answering questions on one’s own. Discussion facilitates the metacognitive processes of detecting errors and assessing the coherence of an answer.

Agreement among peers has important consequences for final behavior. For example, when peers agreed, students very rarely changed their answer (less than 3% of the time). Further, large increases in confidence occurred when students agreed (as compared to when they disagreed). Alternatively, disagreements likely engaged different discussion processes and prompted students to combine different answers. Whether students weighed their initial answer more than their partner’s initial answer remains debatable. When students disagreed with their partner, they were more likely to stick with their own answer than switch; they kept their own answer 66% of the time. Even when their partner was more confident, students only switched to their partner’s answer 50% of the time. The low rate of switching during disagreements suggests that students weighed their own answer more heavily than their partner’s answer. In fact, across prior research, deciders typically weigh their own thoughts more than the thoughts of an advisor (Harvey, Harries, & Fischer, 2000 ; Yaniv & Kleinberger, 2000 ).

Interestingly, peers agreed more frequently than expected by chance. When students were initially correct (64% of the time), 78% of peers agreed. When students were initially incorrect (36% of the time), peers agreed 43% of the time. Pairs of students, then, agree more than expected by a random distribution of answers throughout the classroom. These data suggest that students group themselves into pairs based upon likelihood of sharing the same answer. Further, these data suggest that student understanding is not randomly distributed throughout the physical space of the classroom. Across all classes, students were instructed to work with a neighbor to discuss their answer. Given that neighbors agreed more than predicted by chance, students seem to tend to sit near and pair with peers that share their same levels of understanding. Our results from peer instruction reveal that students physically locate themselves near students of similar abilities. Peer instruction could potentially benefit from randomly pairing students together (i.e. not with a physically close neighbor) to generate the most disagreements and generative activity during discussion.

Learning through peer instruction may involve deep processing as peers actively challenge each other, and this deep processing may effectively support long-term retention. Future research can examine the persistence of gains in accuracy from peer instruction. For example, whether errors that are corrected during peer instruction stay corrected on later retests of the material remains an open question. High and low-confidence errors that are corrected during peer instruction may result in different long-term retention of the correct answer; more specifically, the hypercorrection effect suggests that errors committed with high confidence are more likely to be corrected on subsequent tests than errors with low confidence (e.g., Butler, Fazio, & Marsh, 2011 ; Butterfield & Metcalfe, 2001 ; Metcalfe, 2017 ). Whether hypercorrection holds for corrections from classmates during peer instruction (rather than from an absolute authority) could be examined in the future.

The influence of partner interaction on accuracy may depend upon the domain and kind of question posed to learners. For simple factual or perceptual questions, partner interaction may not consistently benefit learning. More specifically, partner interaction may amplify and bolster wrong answers when factual or perceptual questions lead most students to answer incorrectly (Koriat, 2015 ). However, for more “intellective tasks,” interactions and arguments between partners can produce gains in knowledge (Trouche et al., 2014 ). For example, groups typically outperform individuals for reasoning tasks (Laughlin, 2011 ; Moshman & Geil, 1998 ), math problems (Laughlin & Ellis, 1986 ), and logic problems (Doise & Mugny, 1984; Perret-Clermont, 1980 ). Peer instruction questions that allow for student argumentation and reasoning, therefore, may have the best benefits in student learning.

The underlying benefits of peer instruction extend beyond the improvements in accuracy seen from pre-discussion to post-discussion. Peer instruction prompts students to retrieve information from long-term memory, and these practice tests improve long-term retention of information (Roediger III & Karpicke, 2006 ; Tullis, Fiechter, & Benjamin, 2018 ). Further, feedback provided by instructors following peer instruction may guide students to improve their performance and correct misconceptions, which should benefit student learning (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik, 1991 ; Thurlings, Vermeulen, Bastiaens, & Stijnen, 2013 ). Learners who engage in peer discussion can use their new knowledge to solve new, but similar problems on their own (Smith et al., 2009 ). Generating new knowledge and revealing gaps in knowledge through peer instruction, then, effectively supports students’ ability to solve novel problems. Peer instruction can be an effective tool to generate new knowledge through discussion between peers and improve student understanding and metacognition.

Availability of data and materials

As described below, data and materials are available on the OpenScienceFramework: https://mfr.osf.io/render?url=https://osf.io/5qc46/?action=download%26mode=render .

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Peer tutoring and cooperative learning.

• Keith J. Topping Keith J. Topping University of Dundee
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1432
• Published online: 27 August 2020

Both peer tutoring and cooperative learning are types of peer assisted learning; they involve people from similar social groupings who are not professional teachers helping each other to learn and learning themselves by teaching. Peer tutoring usually involves pairs of students, one in the role of tutor and the other as tutee, with the more able or experienced member helping the other to learn material which is new to the tutor but not to the tutee. By contrast, cooperative learning is usually done in small groups of perhaps four students, often of mixed ability. The group works toward a consensus on a problem. Because it is easier to dominate or hide in a group, roles are often assigned to each group member.

Earlier perspectives tended to use the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, perhaps with some consideration of Bandura and Dewey. Chi, King, and Graesser have been prominent in more recent work. However, a theoretical perspective is offered that integrates these elements with more practical issues.

In general, both peer tutoring and cooperative learning “work”— in a wide range of curricular subjects and with a wide range of ages. Given the appropriate form of organization, cognitive gains ensue for both helpers and those who are helped. This is not the main research issue, which is exploring how and why these practices work, in order to improve effectiveness. There are several meta-analyses (a statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies) which are relevant, and beyond this, key individual papers of specific importance are highlighted.

Over the years, we have become wiser about some of the key issues. In peer tutoring, same-ability tutoring has appeared in recent years, sometimes reciprocal, and we need to know under what conditions it works. Cooperative learning has issues regarding the most effective roles for group members and how these integrate with student ability and personality. There has also been much recent work in online peer tutoring which raises different issues. The existing literature is well-developed since these are not new methods. Future research should include more tightly defined studies focusing on more minor variables of context and organization.

Many teachers will say they use both peer tutoring and cooperative learning, but very often they overestimate how often anything like good practice takes place. Simply putting students together and hoping for the best will not do, although it might have mild effects. Teachers using these methods need to be clear about what organizational parameters are vital in their context with their type of peer assisted learning. These features then need to be maximized in practice and an eye must be kept on implementation fidelity throughout. Education administrators need to organize professional development for teachers which is thorough, including initial instruction and practice followed up by support and monitoring in the classroom.

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• cooperative learning
• effectiveness

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From Tutor to Future Educator: Investigating the Role of Peer-Peer Tutoring in Shaping Careers in Medical Education

• Original Research
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• Published: 09 September 2024

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• Lauren Stokes 1 &
• Harinder Singh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0160-1575 2  

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In the effort to promote academic excellence and provide teaching experiences and training for medical students, the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine (UCISOM) built a novel peer tutoring program (2020), Collaborative Learning Communities with Medical Students as Teachers (CLC-MSAT). While the role of peer-assisted learning in student success on academic courses is well established, we wanted to assess the impact of our UCISOM peer-assisted learning program on tutors’ career interest in medical education. Through a mixed-methods analysis of our peer tutors’ experiences, we found 100% were overall satisfied with their positions; > 85% learned new skills; > 88% felt they were strong teachers; > 88% felt they now had a stronger grasp of the medical curriculum and most importantly, 100% of students maintained their interest and aspirations to serve in a future medical educator role after participating as a tutor. Additionally, we found a statistically significant relationship between tutors’ intentions of exploring a career in academic medicine after serving in the CLC program. Our findings suggest that our tutoring program has had a positive impact in providing authentic teaching experiences and training to medical students early in their careers at UCISOM, which may help prepare the next generation of qualified academic clinicians.

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Introduction

One of the main expectations of health professionals in an academic institution is teaching, yet there are often inadequate avenues for providing teaching training for medical educators [ 1 ]. To address the issue of a lack of training and increasing demand for medical educators, in recent years, medical education institutes have been involved in building peer-assisted learning (PAL) models. The intention is that these programs may provide avenues for medical students to serve as teachers while still pursuing medical education and possibly serve a role as medical educator while practicing medicine.

PAL refers to an education method in which a more senior-standing student provides instruction for their peers [ 2 , 3 ]. The PAL models include the development and refinement of knowledge through active learning support from peers. PAL programs ensure student success and most importantly support the students who might be at risk of failing [ 4 ]. The strengths of PAL programs also include fostering a safe learning environment and providing mentorship opportunities for students [ 2 ]. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic-induced virtual instructions and isolation, students expressed a preference for peer-peer learning over primarily relying on faculty instruction [ 5 ]. This momentum in innovating instruction and medical education can be captured to create teaching avenues for students.

Multiple studies have indicated that PAL programs have positive impacts for both tutors and tutees; for example, tutors were found to have significantly higher USMLE scores on Step 1 and Step 2 CK, as well as overall medical school GPAs [ 6 , 7 ]. Additionally, some universities have found that for objective measures such as examination scores and course grades, students who participated in peer tutoring performed better, on average, than their non-participant peers [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. For more subjective measures, such as collaboration and leadership skills, peer tutoring has been found to also have a positive influence on tutors [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Interestingly, it has been demonstrated that peer-led teaching not only aids in students becoming more receptive to teaching, but also develops an increasing interest for teaching in future years in medical school [ 9 ]. Strengths of PAL programs also include the prospect that peers are able to more accurately determine knowledge gaps compared to teacher-led learning, as well as creating a horizontal hierarchy in the teaching environment [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. PAL programs are deemed as a bidirectional and reciprocal process in which the tutor naturally discovers their own level of content understanding based on their ability to teach the content to another person [ 17 , 18 ]. This type of educational strategy is meant to supplement teacher-led learning as an additional resource to serve the wide learning levels of a student cohort [ 19 , 20 ].

To fulfill the need of peer-peer learning and nurturing future generations of educators, in 2020, the University of California Irvine, School of Medicine (UCISOM) built a peer-assisted learning model to support students’ scholarly success during pre-clerkship and clinical years [ 5 ]. After a successful pilot program, MS1s were recruited to build a collaborative student community-based environment for the incoming class of MS1s. Services were tailored to successfully transition students into medical school, which included a focus on navigating the UCISOM landscape, relieving anxiety, managing COVID pandemic-induced loneliness, and learning medical physiology and anatomy in a low stress environment from their peers. This program was named the Collaborative Learning Communities with Medical Students As Teachers (CLC-MSAT) [ 21 ].

As the team grew from a staff of 18 to 73 peer tutors in a 4-year period (2020–2024), our attention has also turned into cultivating future academic-oriented clinicians interested in exploring medical education or academic medicine as a career. Specifically, our team is invested in providing timely, relevant, and ongoing professional development in evidence-based teaching pedagogy, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, as well as mental health advocacy. For example, MSATs are required to participate in a suicide prevention certification training, referred to as question, persuade, refer (QPR), which helps MSATs determine the signs of students they may work with combatting mental health challenges. DEI workshops are led by experts at our university to ensure our programming remains inclusive of the diverse student body we are privileged to serve.

Program Overview

CLC was initially developed through the collaboration between faculty, medical education administration, and medical students at UCISOM who identified the need and preference for peer-led instruction. The program continues to adapt to student and MSAT feedback with each iteration of the program, which takes place between July and May of each academic year. All MSATs are compensated equally and competitively. UCISOM MSATs receive nearly 60% higher compensation in comparison to baccalaureate-holding peer tutors at other medical school programs within the University of California system. All CLC services are provided at no-cost to students.

The CLC-MSAT sessions are divided into groups with one tutor per seven students, to allow enough bandwidth for a tutor to provide dedicated attention to all students in the group. Faculty members, including course directors, are assigned to each CLC-MSAT group to collaborate and provide teaching materials for in-house and board exams to the MSATs.

UCISOM MSATs are compensated on an hourly basis and permitted to work up to 10 h per week. MSATs submit biweekly timesheets to the director of academic support, which documents the amount of time they spent on each employment activity. In addition to hours spent teaching, MSATs are also compensated for preparation time, administrative tasks such as organizing session schedules, and for leadership responsibilities, such as the distribution and analysis of feedback surveys. MSATs are considered academic employees at UCISOM, which entitles them to unique privileges, such as discounts to wellness, financial, parking, and leisure resources within the local community, which are typically reserved for full-time staff and faculty of the university. With each iteration of the program, we continue to attract the highest number of applications than in previous years. For example, in 2024, over 40% of medical students at UCISOM applied to serve as an MSAT.

Service Offerings

Service offerings and number of MSATs differ by level of medical students served. For example, the MS1 program provides the most services and has the highest number of MSATs and highest student attendance across sessions. The three programs within CLC continue to expand in response to student and MSAT feedback. Details of the services offered to MS1s to MS3s (Fig.  1 ).

CLC-MSAT service offerings per program

MS1 Program

Second year medical students lead the CLC program for first year medical students. Services include pre-exam review sessions, content review sessions, individual and small group tutoring, and workshops related to utilizing third-party resources.

MS2 Program

Third year medical students lead the CLC program for second year medical students. Services include pre-exam review sessions, board-style question sessions to help prepare students for Step 1, individual and small group tutoring, and workshops related to utilizing third-party resources.

MS3 Program

Fourth year medical students lead the CLC program for third year medical students. Supplemental instruction is offered for each of the seven core clerkships, referred to at UCISOM as “rotation tracks.” Additionally, individual and small group tutoring are available to third year medical students.

Leadership Organization and Structure

The CLC-MSAT program is led by a staff administrator under the title of director of academic support services. This individual oversees the training of MSATs, implementation of tutoring services, and evaluation of the program. On the student leadership level, student directors oversee the individual coordination and implementation of CLC services. Additional student leadership positions include curriculum specialists, who are in charge of creating instructional materials, and education research specialists, who support the collection and analysis of feedback surveys. Throughout the past 3 years, additional leadership positions have emerged due to MSAT requests, such as a social media specialist, board examination preparation director, and finance director (Fig.  2 ). These positions are created to allow students an opportunity to gain specialized experience within CLC, with the intention of increasing the competitiveness of their curriculum vitae when applying for residency.

CLC-MSAT leadership organization and structure

MSAT program directors meet with the faculty basic science and clinical science course directors at the beginning of each year for an introductory session about ways the program can support student learning and to glean insights into areas for improvement. Several faculty also opt to collaborate with our MSATs to host their exam reviews and/or share their teaching material to improve CLC-generated teaching worksheets.

MSAT Selection Process

CLC-MSAT recruitment takes place on an annual basis in which first through third year medical students can apply for a position in early Spring of each academic year (Fig.  3 ). While students must be in good academic standing to serve as an MSAT, there is no academic performance minimum, such as exam scores, to be considered for a position. Students are assessed holistically on their responses to open-ended questions using a standardized rubric. The review team consists of 35 current MSATs who score each application with all identifying information of the applicant removed. After the initial MSAT screening, the director of academic support unblinds all applications and reviews the applications with a minimum score of 45 out of 50. The number of applications received consistently exceeds the number of positions available, as over 40% of medical students apply for a position and about 50% of applicants are ultimately extended an offer of employment.

Annual timeline of CLC-MSAT program

Training and Professional Development

As a faculty trained in a secondary teaching credential program, the director of academic support services provides 5 h of initial training in teaching pedagogy and operations of the program. CLC training is rooted in social cognitive, adult, and situated learning theories. Specifically, our MSATs strive to support the reciprocal nature of peer-led learning by creating a safe environment for students of all learning levels, while focusing on content directly applicable to the practice of medicine. Additional areas of focus in training constitute creating actionable learning objectives, scaffolding, combatting impostor syndrome with students, presenting information in multiple modalities to target unique learning preferences, and harnessing participation strategies. Training is provided both in-person and via Zoom at the beginning of the academic year.

The focus of this paper is to provide an understanding of our MSATs’ experiences serving within the CLC-MSAT program, including their overall satisfaction, recommended areas for improvement, and exploring the potential impact of their involvement in the CLC-MSAT program has had on envisioning a future career in medical education.

Data Collection

Our research team developed an inventory to help understand the impact that serving as an MSAT has had on our students, including how the experience has potentially impacted their career aspirations. Students who served as MSATs during the 2022–2023 academic year were invited to participate in the survey in May 2023. The survey questions included an informed consent to participate. A supplementary document with the survey questionnaire is attached with the manuscript, which provides an item requiring informed consent to participate. The inventory explored if the MSAT had prior teaching experience or formal teaching training before serving within the CLC program, satisfaction with their position, collaboration experiences with other MSATs and students, and how this role potentially had any impact on their career trajectory. The research project was deemed as exempt through the IRB process by the University of California, Irvine.

In addition to demographic information and previous teaching experience, the survey had a total of nine Likert scale items and three open-ended items to assess satisfaction, career trajectory, and areas for continued growth of the program. MSATs were invited to complete the survey by the UCISOM director of academic support services at the end of the third iteration of the program in 2023. All participation was voluntary and anonymous.

Data Analysis Procedures

Quantitative survey items were analyzed using standard percentage calculations on Excel. The career trajectory responses were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) software to conduct a paired samples t -test. Qualitative items were independently analyzed in a three-step process. The first step involved the researchers independently determining a theme for each response to the open-ended items. In the second step, the researchers then further independently generated six overarching themes for the first open-ended item and five themes to combine the second and third questions. In the third step, the researchers compared their themes and categorized the data into final themes presented in the results.

Previous Teaching Experience

In the effort to gauge previous teaching experience or formal training, MSATs were asked if their experience or training took place at the K-12, undergraduate, or graduate level, as well as “no previous experience or training.” A total of nine statements assessed satisfaction and career trajectory items that were based on a 1–4 Likert scale with a 1 indicating a strongly disagree response to the statement, whereas a 4 indicated a strong agreement. Single-question items included Overall, I am satisfied with my position as an MSAT , I would recommend for other students to serve as an MSAT , and I have learned new skills in this position .

To reflect on how the role has influenced their perceptions as a teacher, MSATs were asked: after serving as an MSAT, I feel I am a stronger teacher , as well as, I have a stronger grasp of the medical school curriculum . To address the notion of collaboration and effective teaching, two items included:

I work well with my colleagues in this program.

I work well with my students in this program.

To measure how the CLC program has potentially influenced the MSATs’ career trajectories, they were asked to rate:

Before I served as an MSAT, I envisioned a career in academic medicine.

Now that I have served as an MSAT, I envision a career in academic medicine.

Open-Ended Items

In addition to the Likert scale items, three open-ended questions asked the following:

What are some of the aspects you enjoyed most about serving as an MSAT?

Has serving as an MSAT had any influence on your career aspirations?

Respondents were also provided with the opportunity to disclose areas for improvement in an item which posed:

How can the CLC-MSAT program improve to better support MSATs?

Did you encounter any specific challenges as an MSAT?

Finally, the third open-ended item requested for any additional comments, concerns, or suggestions the MSAT wanted to share with the research team .

Demographic Items

MSATs were invited to disclose non-identifying demographic information, such as their current year and program in medical school, age, gender, and first or second college generation status. All demographic questions had the option of “prefer not to say” to ensure respondents did not feel any identifying information was being solicited.

Demographics of Respondents

A total of 28 MSATs completed the MSAT Feedback Survey in May 2023 out of a team of 48 (response rate = 58%). In addition to serving in the current team, the academic years the respondents indicated serving as an MSAT were as follows: 2020–2021, 25% ( n  = 7); 2021–2022, 32% ( n  = 9); and 2022–2023, 100% ( n  = 28). Our total team consisted of 18 MS1 program MSATs, 15 MS2 program MSATs, and 15 MS3 program MSATs. All information presented in the figures below has been rounded up to the nearest whole number. Table 1 shows demographics data for all the CLC-MSAT program participants.

The breakdown of class standings of MSATs was 43% = MS4, 39% = MS3, 14% = “Other” (leave of absence or different educational track), and 3% = MS2. Most participants were MD-exclusive students (79%) compared to 11% of MD/PhD, 7% MD/MBA, and 4% MD/MPH. Additionally, 18% of respondents were students in one of the mission-based programs at UCISOM, which include LEAD PRIME-LC and PRIME LEAD-ABC compared to 79% of students not in a mission-based program. PRIME-LC trains future physicians to meet the needs of under-resourced Latino communities. PRIME LEAD-ABC produces physician leaders who address the diverse health needs of Black communities. One student indicated “prefer not to say” regarding their mission-based program status.

Since the inception of CLC in 2020, several upper class-standing students have served in multiple CLC-level programs over the past 3 years. Most participants (71%) served in the MS1 program, compared to 39% in the MS2 program, 39% in the MS3 program, and 4% who preferred not to disclose which program they had ever served as an MSAT. While 68% of respondents served as an MSAT-only ( n  = 19), 25% held a student director level role ( n  = 7), 25% held a specialist position ( n  = 7), 11% indicated an “Other” position ( n  = 3), and 4% preferred not to say ( n  = 1).

Based on age range, 64% of MSATs indicated they were between 26 and 29 years old, 29% were between 22 and 25 years old, and 7% were between 30 and 33 years old. Exactly 50% of the participants identified as male ( n  = 14) compared to 50% who identified as female ( n  = 14). Based on college generation status, 96% of MSATs were a second-generation college student compared to 4% who were the first in their immediate family to attend college.

Professional Preparation

Based on prior teaching experience, 74% of MSATs had served in a teaching capacity at the undergraduate level ( n  = 20), 59% at the K-12 level ( n  = 16), 15% in graduate school ( n  = 4), and 11% of the MSATs had no prior teaching experience before the CLC-MSAT program ( n  = 3). Nearly half of the MSATs had no formal teaching training (48%) compared to 19% to teach at the K-12 level, 41% for undergraduate students, and 11% for graduate students.

MSAT Satisfaction

MSAT satisfaction was measured on a 1–4 Likert scale with a 1 indicating a strong disagreement and a 4 indicating a strong agreement. When asked to rate their overall satisfaction as an MSAT, 68% ( n  = 19) indicated they strongly agreed they were satisfied compared to 32% ( n  = 9) who agreed to the same statement. No MSATs indicated a disagreement or strong disagreement regarding their satisfaction.

A total of 76% of MSATs strongly agreed (71%) or agreed (25%) they would recommend for other students to serve as an MSAT compared to one student (4%) who indicated they disagreed with this statement.

Personal Development

To measure personal and professional development, 86% of respondents strongly agreed (50%) or agreed (36%) they learned new skills in the position compared to 14% who disagreed. Most MSATs (90%) strongly agreed (61%) or agreed (29%) they were a stronger teacher after serving as an MSAT compared to 10% who disagreed. An item to measure if MSATs gained a stronger grasp of the medical curriculum as a result of serving as an MSAT, 90% strongly agreed or agreed to the statement compared to 10% who disagreed.

Collaboration Effectiveness

MSATs were asked to gauge their effectiveness in collaborating with their colleagues and students in the program. Most MSATs (97%) strongly agreed (78%) or agreed (19%) they worked well with their colleagues compared to 3% who disagreed. In comparison, 29% of MSATs strongly agreed or agreed (64%) they worked well with their students.

Career Trajectory

A paired samples t -test was performed to measure the influence serving as an MSAT has had on their intended career trajectory in academic medicine. There was a statistically significant difference in agreement levels for the interest of pursuing a career in academic medicine before serving as an MSAT ( M  = 3.48, SD  = 0.80) compared to after serving as an MSAT ( M  = 3.59, SD  = 0.57); t (26) =  − 1.14, p  < 0.001 (Fig.  4 ). While most MSATS (90%) strongly agreed (61%) or agreed (29%), about 10% of the team disagreed (7%) or strongly disagreed (3%) that they envisioned a career in academic medicine before serving as an MSAT. After serving as an MSAT, 96% of the team either strongly agreed (63%) or agreed (33%) they envisioned a career in academic medicine compared to 4% who disagreed. No respondents strongly disagreed with this statement. One participant’s response was removed from the results, as they did not provide both a before and after score in their response.

Interest in a career in academic medicine before and after serving as an MSAT

Three open-ended items invited MSATs to disclose their thoughts about the specific aspects they enjoyed while serving in CLC, as well as how this opportunity has potentially impacted their career trajectory. Recommendations for program improvement were solicited with an additional platform to disclose any remaining comments and concerns. General themes are presented below.

The first open-ended item invited MSATs to share the aspects they enjoyed most about serving in the program (Fig.  5 ). In addition, MSATs were asked to discuss if the program had any influence on their career aspirations in academic medicine. A total of 17 MSATs (61% of the sample) provided responses to this item with most respondents sharing multiple ways CLC has impacted their career aspirations. Thus, response frequencies are reported in the number of responses per theme in lieu of a percentage of responses. Themes included a commitment to exploring a career in medical education (5 responses), enjoyment in mentorship and giving back (15 responses), engaging in content review (4 responses), developing teaching skill sets (3 responses), and participating in curricula building and teaching innovation (2 responses).

Aspects MSATs enjoyed and influences on career aspirations

The second open-ended item invited MSATs to discuss ways CLC can improve to better serve student staff. A total of 15 MSATs (54% of the sample) provided responses to this item. Due to the similarities in the two open-ended items, the third and final open-ended item invited MSATs to share any additional comments or suggestions not captured in the other questions (Fig.  6 ). A total of 3 MSATs (11% of the sample) provided responses to this item, with most respondents sharing multiple areas that could be improved. Themes included improving teaching materials (3 responses), providing access to third-party resources for MSATs (2 responses), increasing the number of opportunities for professional networking and development (4 responses), improving organizational processes and services (6 responses), and addressing scheduling conflicts (6 responses).

Improvements and general comments from MSATs

The CLC-MSAT program at UCISOM has been designed to both promote academic excellence for the students in our medical program and to provide authentic teaching experiences for our future physicians. Of particular interest for the researchers was to determine if serving as an MSAT has had any influence on our UCISOM students’ career aspirations into academic medicine, as well as to determine areas of success and improvement for our program.

Based on our survey results, while 11% of MSATs had no previous teaching experience before CLC, 46% also had no previous teacher training (Table  1 ). All MSATs indicated they agreed or strongly agreed they were satisfied with their position, overall. Within these respondents, 96% of MSATs agreed or strongly agreed they would recommend this role to others. Additionally, 90% agreed or strongly agreed that serving as an MSAT has provided them with a stronger grasp of the medical curriculum and made them a stronger teacher (Table  2 ). As a theme of teaching efficacy, 93% of MSATs agreed or strongly agreed they worked well with their students.

Our interest was also to understand if serving as an MSAT had any influence on a career in academic medicine. These findings indicated 89% of MSATs agreed or strongly agreed they envisioned this career before serving as an MSAT compared to 96% who agreed or strongly agreed after serving as an MSAT. Interestingly, one MSAT indicated they strongly disagreed that they envisioned a career in academic medicine before CLC; this statistic dropped to 0% of MSATs disagreeing or strongly disagreeing they wanted to be in academic medicine after serving in CLC. This is a worthwhile result to note, as the demands of serving as an MSAT did not lead to any attrition for our students in their commitment to a future career of teaching and medicine.

As we focus on the experiences of our MSATs within the CLC program, it is essential to examine the unique characteristics of our respondents. For example, the 2022–2023 MS1 program was staffed by 18 MSATs, the MS2 program had 14 MSATs, and the MS3 program had 15 MSATs. Within our particular sample, 82% of respondents served in either the MS2 or MS3 programs despite accounting for only 62% of the overall number of MSATs in the program. Thus, the majority of our responses were derived from respondents in the clerkship phase of their medical school journey.

This is an important distinction to highlight, as students in the latter phase of their medical school journey may have more concrete career plans than students in their pre-clerkship years. As such, these upper class-standing students may have joined the CLC program with clearer intentions as to how this program could facilitate their career aspirations compared to pre-clerkship MSATs who may still be in an exploratory phase of their post-graduation plans.

Additionally, 61% of respondents indicated they held a student leadership role in CLC, which would constitute a director or specialist title. A total of 18 students, or 40% of MSATs, held a leadership title for this iteration of CLC. The high representation of student leaders in these responses may have skewed the overall representation of MSATs’ experiences. Essentially, the MSATs who sought and executed leadership roles tended to be students who vocalized their desire to pursue academic medicine after CLC, which was a strong factor as to why their application was originally accepted for the position.

In lieu of these considerations, we are pleased to see a high overall satisfaction rate for our MSATs in addition to sentiments that serving in this program has refined or confirmed many of their aspirations to pursue a career in academic medicine. This is an important area to highlight, as peer tutoring programs such as CLC can help identify and capture students who are interested in academic medicine at an early point in their career. Providing these future educators with opportunities to practice evidence-based teaching pedagogy with students may help sustain a continued investment in pursuing a career which combines teaching and medicine.

Strengths and Positive Outcomes

Career in medical education.

Before serving in the CLC program, most MSATS (89%) strongly agreed (61%) or agreed (29%) they envisioned a career in academic medicine. However, after serving as an MSAT, 96% of the team either strongly agreed (63%) or agreed (33%) they envisioned a career in academic medicine. Part of the modest 7% increase could potentially be explained by the naturally self-selecting bias of our sample; most MSATs held interests in academic medicine even before CLC employment, which likely attracted them to join the program in the initial phase.

Open-ended responses within the impact CLC has had on career aspirations included the enjoyment MSATs found in helping students grasp difficult content, which reaffirmed their desire to explore academic medicine. The personal, perceived teaching efficacy of helping students master content they once struggled with may has potentially contributed to MSATs’ perspective of being an effective teacher.

The primary currency for the successful functioning of medicine and medical education is a healthy mentor–mentee relationship. The significance of mentorship in education has been emphasized at multiple levels. It was encouraging to see that MSATs also perceived this as a great opportunity to mentor the next generation.

Giving Back

Related to teaching efficacy and mentorship attributes included the theme of giving back. Specifically, MSATs developed strong positive associations with assisting struggling students and seeing their development and confidence transform in real-time. MSATs also observed and learned how to recognize students at varying levels of performance to help foster teaching pedagogy to meet the students where they were currently at in their learning.

Content Review

A natural benefit to the tutor-tutee relationship is for the tutor to gain a deeper understanding of challenging material in the effort to teach it to another student. MSATs reported using their position as an opportunity to review previous material and to master the content in a way they had not been able to previously as a student. Additionally, student questions allowed for MSATs to view material under different lenses, further strengthening their grasp of medical content.

Development of Teaching Skill Sets

CLC was reported to be the highlight of one of the MSAT’s second year of medical school. Specifically, one respondent indicated the program helped improve their presentation and interpersonal skills. Combined, these factors motivated the MSAT to pursue a career that combines medical practice with education and teaching.

Curriculum Building and Innovation in Teaching

The opportunities for innovating and improving the CLC program were reported as highlights for several MSATs. For example, MSATs discussed how they were able to help build the program “from the ground up” and participated in implementing changes to improve service offerings. MSATs take an active role in executing and improving CLC, which was meaningful for them to recognize.

Feedback and Improvements

The program has been a great success at UCISOM and has helped both the tutors and tutees in mastering essential medical concepts and competencies. While the program has had significant positive outcomes, the overall interpretation on the impact of this program for MSAT involvement in future pursuits in medical education requires longitudinal tracking and alumni data collection. Therefore, the current data only shows the impact of this program on medical education trajectories of medical students at UCISOM. The assessment of the impact of peer tutoring programs in advancing medical education at national level warrants further exploration.

As evidenced by our ongoing surveys, our program is invested in supporting our MSATs by using their feedback to inform our services. Each of these items is outlined below based on the qualitative data captured on our survey.

Improve Teaching Materials

Each year of CLC builds upon materials from the previous year. Our materials consist of worksheets with board-style questions that are derived from influences of existing resources (practice question banks) and in-house vignettes co-designed by our faculty. A new process addition to help improve our teaching materials is for the student curriculum specialists to send their materials to the staff director of CLC, as well as to the faculty course director of the particular content area. While the faculty course director assesses content accuracy and high yield appropriateness, the staff director makes recommendations on learning objectives, organization, and scaffolding opportunities to meet diverse learning levels of students. Additionally, most CLC materials pass through a review of at least five MSATs for proofreading.

Provide Access to Third-Party Resources

In 2023, UCISOM provided free vouchers to the practice question bank, UWorld, to all second year medical students. Due to the costs associated with this offering, it is currently unclear if the university will be able to provide the same access to third-party resources for all levels of medical students. This is an area of consideration which will be revisited with each fiscal year.

Increase Opportunities for Professional Networking and Development

In response to requests for more opportunities for professional networking and development, the staff director of CLC-MSAT instituted the following changes and mandatory trainings for all MSATs: introduced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) sessions, mental health workshops, as well as improved initial and ongoing teaching pedagogy instruction.

Two DEI trainings are hosted by DEI experts within the UCISOM and UCI main campus departments. The sessions focus on implicit bias, cultural competency, identity salience, and intersecting identities as they relate to strategies and techniques for effective cross-cultural mentoring and advising. Mental health workshops are hosted by the UCI Counseling Center, which includes a suicidal ideation certification program for our MSATs, referred to as question, persuade, refer (QPR), to identify students at risk for mental health challenges. The initial and robust teaching training took place before the start of the 2023–2024 CLC-MSAT program, which was hosted by the staff director of CLC, who is also an adjunct STEM professor and received teaching credential training for secondary education. Additional pedagogy training is hosted in conjunction with UCI’s Division for Teaching and Educational Innovation department to help MSATs adopt and refine their skills for common teaching challenges, such as increasing student participation.

In addition, the number of staff meetings has increased for the 2023–2024 CLC-MSAT program in which weekly, biweekly, and monthly meetings are held with specific MSATs on the team. For example, weekly meetings are held between the student program directors and the staff director of CLC, biweekly for MSATs in specialist roles, and monthly for all other MSATs.

Improve Organizational Processes and Services

To address areas of improvement in organizational processes and services, our CLC team has been increasingly explicit in communication regarding CLC positions, time commitments, and expectations. Although we have operated using position descriptions from the pilot year of our program, we have made previously ambiguous information more concrete. For example, we have expanded language from, “the MS1 education research specialist will conduct surveys throughout the year,” to “the MS1 education research specialist will be responsible for revising, distributing, analyzing, and reporting data for the MS1 program every October, December, and February of the academic year.”

In addition, CLC leadership has been more intentional about conveying expectations by role, as individual tutoring sessions have notoriously been the most difficult service to staff. As such, MSATs must confirm their acceptance that they will be expected to serve as a 1:1 tutor in addition to their large group teaching sessions when formally accepting their employment offer. This one change has led to simpler staffing processes for our individual tutoring sessions compared to previous years.

Another improvement area of organizational processes relates to navigating interpersonal differences between MSATs. For example, although an MSAT may share a leadership title of director or specialist, they still remain in a horizontal reporting structure to other MSATs. To help our team navigate challenges they may inevitably face with one another, we have increased the frequency and transparency of our meetings, as our quality communication channels have helped mitigate previous communication challenges. The CLC-MSAT team remains a united front, committed to providing robust and inclusive tutoring resources to those we are privileged to serve.

While we strongly believe that a peer tutoring program such as CLC provides an invaluable service to students and tutors, we recognize the unique constraints of individual institutional budgets, student support services (DEI, wellness, etc.), and staffing must be considered for this investment.

Future Directions

Our CLC-MSAT program has been synonymous with seeking feedback and adapting to change with timely and relevant support for our MSAT team. While we have introduced new and robust trainings for our team, we are also continuously creating new leadership positions for our MSATs. Our intention is to help our MSATs gain valuable experience in a setting which supports and competitively compensates their contributions. For example, we have created director and specialist-level roles based on MSAT requests, including finance, social media, and board exam responsibilities. Our team regularly conducts research and presents and publishes on our findings to provide ample opportunities for MSATs to gain this invaluable experience.

Future directions for CLC-MSAT include longitudinal research to track where our graduated MSATs find their careers after residency. We are excited to likely be able to determine this data for several of our MSATs from our pilot program in the next 2 years. Additional areas for CLC include increased marketing of our services to undergraduate students interested in UCISOM to showcase the variety of careers in medicine and the doors that may open as a result of serving as an MSAT.

In order to provide additional pedagogy training to MSATs, we plan to sponsor interested MSATs to attend the annual conference on Educating Learners through Innovation and Technology (ELITe) organized by the Medical Education unit of University of California Irvine School of Medicine. During this 2-day conference, the instructors teach principles of effective learning through innovations in instructional technology, curriculum development and design, evidence-based slide design, writing effective learning objectives, gamification of medical education, building DEI and cultural competency into curricula, formative and summative evaluations, and program evaluations.

Historically, this conference has been attended by residents, fellows, and other physicians interested in medical education. Recently, many of the basic science faculty who are teaching pre-clerkship curriculum are also taking advantage of this training. Our plan is to open fee waivers for interested MSATs who would like to further advance and refine their teaching in medical education skills. We hope that this training will help fill the current gap of medical educators in the field.

As evidenced by CLC’s continued expansion from a team of 18 MSATs in 2020 to 73 MSATs 3 years later, our attention is equally invested in supporting academic excellence for our students in addition to cultivating skilled, future academic clinicians. We continuously seek feedback from our MSATs to support their career trajectories. Results from this feedback include providing new service offerings for our staff, such as DEI, mental health certifications, and initial and ongoing teaching pedagogy. We are responsive to our MSATs’ needs and committed to providing any support which may help contribute to our MSATs pursuing careers in academic medicine.

Data Availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available here.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the students who are members of the CLC-MSAT program, including our student leadership team: Michael Head, MD, MBA; Aaron Frank, MD; Celina Yang; Konnor Davis; and Nolan Huck. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Nancy Guirguis, EdD, MSW; Megan Boysen Osborn, MD, MHPE; Khanh-Van Le-Bucklin, MD, MEd; and Shelly VanAmburg, MAEd, for their continued support of our program.

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Stokes, L., Singh, H. From Tutor to Future Educator: Investigating the Role of Peer-Peer Tutoring in Shaping Careers in Medical Education. Med.Sci.Educ. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-024-02161-2

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