A Peer-Assisted Learning Program and its Effect on Student Skill Demonstration

Objective: To explore the effect of an intentional Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) program on peer-tutors and peer-tutees for performance on specific psychomotor skills.

Design and Setting: Randomized, pretest-posttest experimental design.

Participants: Undergraduate students (N = 69, 42 females and 27 males, all participants were 18 to 22 years old, 19.5±1.2) enrolled in the professional phase of an accredited Athletic Training Education Program.

Measurements: Pretest and posttest performance for the peer-tutors and post-peer interaction for the peer-tutees on identified therapeutic modality and orthopedic assessment psychomotor skill sets. Peer-tutors were randomly assigned to one of four groups; PAL only (PAL), PAL and the focused review session (PAL+), focused review session only (REV), and a control group (CON). Peer-tutees were randomly assigned to interact with the peer-tutors from the PAL and PAL+ or no interaction as a control group. Pretest-posttest percentage correct average changes for the peer tutors were analyzed with an ANOVA.

Results: The pretest-posttest skill scores were found to be significantly different for the peer-tutors (F_3,102 = 4.703; P = .004). Post-hoc means comparison revealed significant differences between the peer-tutor groups PAL versus CON, PAL+ versus CON, and REV versus CON. Analysis of the peer-tutee means revealed no significant differences (PAL; .906 ± .087, PAL+; .918 ± .077, and Control; .881 ± .061).

Conclusion: These data suggest that peer interaction can increase student skill performance scores for the peer-tutors. A visual review of the means indicates a trend of increased skill level for the peer-tutees that received peer-tutoring from the PAL+ peer tutors. No significant difference was found with the REV group. It would appear from the peer-tutor perspective that a focused review session has more of an effect on student learning than peer interaction.