The Nature of Student Interactions During Peer Tutoring With and Without Prior Training and Experience

This study examined the effects of previous training and experience in peer tutoring on the nature of student interactions. Sixteen classrooms were assigned randomly to two treatments: with and without previous training and experience in peer tutoring. Peer-tutoring teachers taught students a structured, interactional, explanatory verbal rehearsal routine that incorporated step-by-step feedback. Peer tutoring was implemented on a mathematics operations curriculum twice weekly for 10 weeks. Each teacher had identified an average achiever and a low achiever to serve, respectively, as the tutor and the tutee during peer-tutoring generalization sessions. Videotapes were analyzed at three levels: microlevel quantifications, global ratings, and transcripts of representative dyads. Across levels of analysis and across operations and applications content, experienced dyads provided explanations in a more interactional style that incorporated sounder instructional principles. As revealed in the transcripts, however, the nature of student explanations in both conditions was primarily algorithmic rather than conceptual.