Peer Tutoring in the CIS Sandbox: Does It Work?

International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET)

Research indicates that peer mentoring supports students learning and emotional stability. However, its usability and impact in Computer-Supported collaborative (CSCL) learning activities that enhance students’ learning in and outside the classroom require contextual exploration. Hence, this study examined the usability and impacts of peer mentoring in CSCL among undergraduate students using a mixed-methods research approach. Data collection was conducted by administering a questionnaire with both qualitative and quantitative elements. Data analyses started with thematic coding of the nuanced texts collected through open-ended questions, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyze the quantitative data. Findings show that students have a different understanding of collaborative learning, but a common acknowledgment is that peer mentoring is beneficial in CSCL. Importantly, student views are impacted by gender, college affiliations, and CSCL experience. Drawing on the...

Contemporary Educational Technology, 2023

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) pedagogies, platforms, and tools are prevalent in higher education due to their pervasive capabilities to enhance students' engagement, communication, and learning. However, it is reported that CSCL tools, media, and platforms may not yield the desired results if not planned, utilized, and managed strategically. Facilitating students' learning through CSCL may require a non-hierarchical approach, such as peer mentoring, for sustainably valuable outcomes. Using this approach successfully will also require contextual diagnostic analysis and exploration. This study was, therefore, conducted to explore the means to effectively deploy peer mentoring to enhance CSCL involving 227 undergraduate students in an Emirati university. Data were collected using a questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative elements. Data analyses were done using descriptive statistics and thematic coding. Findings show that students are well-disposed to peer mentoring as a measure for enhancing CSCL regardless of their demographic characteristics, as they could learn from each other and develop transferrable skills. However, students indicated that the process could be challenging with language barriers, technological issues, and distractions. Even so, the findings show that peer mentoring in CSCL could be enhanced with students' participation in the exercise made voluntary and the availability of different CSCL platforms, among others.

Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice

This research study explores peer teaching and learning without a domain expert teacher, within the context of an activity where teams of second level students (~16 years old) are required to create a learning experience for their peers. The study looks at how participants would like to be taught and how they would teach their peers if given the opportunity and examines the support they require, their motivation levels, and if they actually learn curriculum content using this approach. An exploratory case study methodology was used, and the findings suggest that students want varied learning experiences that include many of the elements which would fall under the heading of 21st century learning, that with some support and encouragement they can create innovative learning experiences for their peers, and that they can learn curriculum content from the process.

ASCILITE 2021: Back to the Future – ASCILITE ‘21 Proceedings ASCILITE 2021 in Armidale, 2021

Social interaction is seen as a key tenet of constructivist approaches to learning. There is a significant body of literature looking into online collaboration for learning, however less is known about how students experience collaboration more broadly. Understanding student experience may help to understand ways of ensuring online collaboration is successful. This student-led study aimed to explore what can be learnt from student perspectives of online collaboration. This study is embedded in a larger research program surrounding a 2019 course renewal project. Ten undergraduate law students were interviewed as part of the overall study but with additional semi-structured questions regarding collaboration. Participants were enrolled in a mix of online and blended units. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Four themes were interpreted: 1) pre-existing social relationships facilitate online collaboration; 2) social media platforms enable interpersona...

Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 2020

This design-based research study examines how a collaborative annotation tool, Perusall, supported the development of community within an asynchronous online graduate course. Students read and engaged with assigned texts uploaded to Perusall each week, providing numerous opportunities for students to interact and collaborate with each other using the tool’s various sharing and communication features. Both text interactions and peer-to-peer interactions on Perusall increased throughout the course, with peer-to-peer interactions increasing at a greater rate, indicative of community growth within the course. Collaborative annotation tools capture students’ thinking and processing in the moment, more closely mirroring the learning that one might see in a face-to-face class when students discuss content with their instructor and/or classmates. This study offers insights for teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders about new approaches for developing community in online educational...

Computers & Education, 2008

Previous research studies on how to promote student participation in asynchronous online discussions have largely focused on the role of the instructor or tutor as facilitators. Not many investigated student facilitation. This article reports a qualitative study examining the facilitation techniques used by student facilitators to attract their course mates to participate in asynchronous online discussions. Data were collected from the students' reflection logs and students' online postings. To explore the extent to which student participation in an online discussion forum is successful, we looked at the depth of discussion threads. We deemed a student facilitator to have successfully attracted other students to participant if the discussion threads had a depth of six or more levels of students' postings. We then examined in detail and reported the facilitation techniques that were exhibited by the student facilitators. Results showed that seven facilitation techniques were employed; the most frequently used were Socratic questioning and sharing personal opinions or experiences. We end by exploring potential implications for practice and for future research.

2010

The following calls for research into the ways in which South African university students use technology for peer-to-peer learning (Czerniewicz and Brown, 2005). This study aims to explore the ways in which students mediate one another's learning and the ways in which they use (and don't use) information and communications technology (ICT) to do so. This study provides a snapshot of eleven University of Fort Hare students' peer-to-peer learning strategies. In exploring this phenomenon in context, the social and cultural factors are analysed using Activity Theory, most notably building on the work of Sharples et al (2007). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students identified as early adopters of ICT for peer-to-peer learning, selected from 375 respondents to the Access and Use Survey questionnaire (Czerniewicz and Brown, 2007). An analytical framework was developed using categories developed from high-level Activity Theory concepts. Sub-categories were developed using key concepts from Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula (2007), Laurillard's (2003) work, as well as, inductively and deductively in relation to the data, following Hardman's (2008) approach. Three key peer-to-peer learning patterns were identified: A group of students preparing for an exam or a test were found to adopt cooperative learning strategies, while students working together towards a tangible output, such as an assignment, adopted collaborative learning strategies. Peer-to-peer tutoring was found to occur where one student is assisted by a moreable peer. Most interviewees' peer-to-peer learning activities were found to occur face-to-face, and the extent and level of interviewees' ICT use was less than anticipated. The findings are not generalisable beyond this small sample, but serve to advance understanding of the processes involved in students' peer-to-peer learning practices.

Ecu Publications Pre 2011, 2002

The literature abounds with information about peer tutoring and the benefits that it can bring to student learning. This case study sought to explore ways of using peer tutoring to enhance the learning experience of a group of higher education students in a multimedia course, who had access to learning resources in an on-line environment. It illustrates how easily and effectively the basic principles of peer tutoring can be adapted and implemented following explicit guidelines from the literature.

Computers and Composition, 1995

This paper reports on selected findings from a study conducted on collaborative-learning in undergraduate and postgraduate management education. Course redesign called for the inclusion of synchronous and asynchronous learning tasks in the course syllabus. The findings reported here are for the first, second, third and fourth iterations of the course carried out over a two-year period as part of a larger action research project currently underway on the use on Web 2.0 in pedagogical innovation. Student collaboration the first instance was limited, with subsequent iterations showing increased success. This paper examines the elements which have most impacted this change and seem to have allowed the use of collaborative tasks to lead to the development of a real collaborative learning community.