ABSTRACT
PEER-ASSISTED LEARNING Th ere is strong evidence from across the education sectors that peer-assisted learning (PAL) can be an eff ective means of learning. PAL is the acquisition of knowledge, understanding, skill and socio-emotional development during a process of working with peers in a cooperative manner. PAL strategies are generally characterised as belonging to one of the classifi cations identifi ed in Table 19.1.1
Peer tutoring Characterised by specifi c role taking as tutor or tutee, with high focus on curriculum or skills content and usually specifi c procedures for interaction, in which participants are trained
Cooperative learning
Typically the participants are working in small heterogeneous groups with various role specifi cation or job division towards some common goal, performance or output, rather than primarily and consciously helping one another’s learning
Collaborative learning
Typically the participants are ability-peers working in small groups in parallel towards some common goal
Peer assessment
Peers formatively and qualitatively evaluating the products or outcomes of learning of others in the group
Peer mentoring Typically one-to-one interaction with a focus on aspirational, social, motivational or organisational issues; the helpers themselves are more experienced and are usually older, and they are usually not expected to gain from the process
Peer education Peers offering credible and reliable information about sensitive life issues and the opportunity to discuss this in an informal peer group setting
Peer counselling Peers helping clarify general life problems and identify solutions by listening, feeding back, summarising and being positive and supportive
Peer modelling The provision of a competent exemplar of desirable learning behaviour by a member or members of a group with the intention that others in the group will imitate it
Peer monitoring Peers observing and checking the process learning behaviours of others in the group with respect to appropriateness and effectiveness
THE BENEFITS OF PEER-ASSISTED LEARNING PAL provides learners with a context through which to practise, develop and consolidate new and existing knowledge, understanding, ways of thinking and behaving. Th ere are a number of reasons why it is repeatedly shown by research to be successful in healthcare professions. Th ese include the time spent on task by peers as they learn together. Th e level of one-to-one interactions during PAL greatly increases the actual time being spent on learning. Th e frequency of feedback is higher than the feedback that peers normally get from teachers and lecturers. It must be acknowledged that the quality of dialogue and feedback may not be as great as that from a skilled
professional; however, the intensity and frequency seems to outweigh the perceived pitfalls of such interactions. A number of factors may be responsible for this. First, the fact that things are explained in a language and level of understanding closer to the current understanding of the peer, as compared with that which a skilled professional may off er, and this could help the learner reshape his or her thinking. Second, through the act of helping a peer, a learner fi rst has to clarify exactly how he or she knows something to be true. Th e learners have to unpack their learning and analyse their thinking. Th is metacognitive approach enables learners to self-regulate their own learning. Th ird, it is possible that there may be less anxiety in disclosing patterns of thinking in small peer groups than to the teacher. Th e power relationships between peers are not as dichotomous as those between learners and skilled teachers and lecturers. Th is might also facilitate the disclosure and exploration of faulty or fl awed thinking without fear of ridicule or judgement by someone who may be the source of summative assessment at some later point in the learning process. Th is is explained in more depth in the theoretical model of peer learning proposed in the next section of this chapter.
