Action research on a collegial model of peer observations

Observing peers for professional development is a familiar and valuable practice but not always favoured in many educational institutions. This small-scale action research (AR) was conducted in an institution where teachers are accustomed to regular peer observation, requiring each teacher to conduct peer observation and to reflect in their teachers’ portfolios. Conventionally, to fulfil the requirement each teacher finds a colleague to observe them either with or mostly without a certain focus. This study, however, employed action research methodology to inquire into a collegial peer observation model to improve this organisational practice. It aimed to promote mutual growth of the participating faculty members in an agreed area. Including the author, five faculty members, who are midcareer and experienced English language teachers, acted as members of the consultation group. In the AR project, appreciative inquiry was used when reflecting on the observed classes and during focus group interviews. As a result of this AR, at least two levels of knowledge were generated: first-person (author) and second-person (the team). The knowledge claim that this practitioner research constructed is ‘When small groups of teachers conduct peer observations focusing on a common concern, learning and collegial growth may increase.’ It is expected to lead to a third-person stage in the department and the academic community in general.     

The Development of Social Cognition: Preschoolers' Use of Mental State Talk in Peer Conflicts

Research Findings: This research examines preschoolers' use of mental state terms in naturally occurring peer conflicts in the classroom to determine how children use mental state terms for organizing their social interactions. Analyses focus on the types, frequencies, and social interactive functions of mental state terms. Utterances (N = 166) with mental state terms from 124 conflict episodes were analyzed. Children used a number of different mental state terms, want and need being the most frequently used, to index their own and their interlocutors' desires for subtle interactive purposes. Want was paired most often with bids for action, objects, inclusion in a play area, or clarification of another child's mental state. Need was most often used when directing the other child's action or attention, to justify, clarify, or insist on their own action or previous request. Practice or Policy: Findings suggest that children's peer conflicts constitute a rich setting for the active construction of social relationships through the use of utterances with mental state language. This emphasis on peer interactions has the potential to inform new ways of supporting children's self–other development as a foundation for academic success.     

Problem-solving in collaborative game design practices: epistemic stance,affect, and engagement

ABSTRACT

This article explores children’s development of problem-solving practices through multimodal engagements in digital activities. The study is based on analyses of a video recorded peer group activity in which two children, within the context of a project on computational thinking using the software Scratch, collaboratively work to solve a coding problem. Drawing on work on epistemics-in-interaction and the cooperative and transformative organization of human action and knowledge, the analyses focus on the interactional strategies that the children use to establish, sustain, and develop knowledge within the peer group and the role of affect in the unfolding organization of actions. By analyzing the multimodal cultural production in children’s interaction with digital technologies, it is shown how children learn creative and artful skills, thus positioning them as consumers as well as producers of media.     

Opinion Versus Knowledge: The Influence of Testimony Format on Children’s Judgments in Morally Relevant Contexts

Research Findings: To test children’s use of testimony of others, 3 – 9 years (N = 227) made judgments about a potential peer transgression in which the intentions of the protagonist were ambiguous, after hearing two different forms of testimony. The 2 forms of testimony were (a) opposing opinion-based testimony from an adult authority versus a peer consensus group and (b) knowledge-based testimony (eyewitness testimony) that was counter to the participants’ initial judgments. Findings revealed that when testimony was presented in an opinion-based format, children were likely to side with the opinion that reflected their own interpretation of the peer encounter, regardless of whether the opinion came from a peer consensus or an adult authority. However, when knowledge-based testimony was introduced in support of the opposite of children’s initial interpretation of the ambiguous peer encounter, children most often changed their initial judgment to align with the new testimony. That is, children used knowledge-based testimony but not opinion-based testimony to evaluate a potential transgression. Practice or Policy: These findings demonstrate that the way in which testimony is delivered to children has a direct influence on their decision making about peer interactions and has relevance for teacher–student discourse in the classroom.     

“… It’s like the immigrants stick together,the stupid ones,and the ones who want to learn something”: dynamics of peer relations,social categories,and dropout in vocational educational training

This paper discusses how student identities are constituted through social categories and how this affects students’ educational trajectories. Dropout is often described as a sudden event but this paper demonstrates how dropping out is a long-term process involving social interactions between the students. It is based on a field study in which the author was enrolled as a student at the car mechanic program at a vocational education and training school. The various social categories emerge in contrast with each other and have fundamental influences in defining the students’ scope of action. Divisions between the students were based on discourses of ethnicity and seriousness. Four portraits of individual students, each belonging to a different peer group, are presented to describe the individual level of the peer-related dropout processes. The discussion calls for awareness of reproducing effects of taken-for-granted logics and discriminatory practices and for including identity-related perspectives on peer relations, when studying dropout.     

An integrative review of in-class activities that enable active learning in college science classroom settings

ABSTRACT

Engaging students in active learning is linked to positive learning outcomes. This study aims to synthesise the peer-reviewed literature about ‘active learning’ in college science classroom settings. Using the methodology of an integrative literature review, 337 articles archived in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) are examined. Four categories of in-class activities emerge: (i) individual non-polling activities, (ii) in-class polling activities, (iii) whole-class discussion or activities, and (iv) in-class group activities. Examining the collection of identified in-class activities through the lens of a theoretical framework informed by constructivism and social interdependence theory, we synthesise the reviewed literature to propose the active learning strategies (ALSs) model and the instructional decisions to enable active learning (IDEAL) theory. The ALS model characterises in-class activities in terms of the degrees to which they are designed to promote (i) peer interaction and (ii) social interdependence. The IDEAL theory includes the ALS model and provides a framework for conceptualising different levels of the general concept ‘active learning’ and how these levels connect to instructional decision-making about using in-class activities. The proposed ALS model and IDEAL theory can be utilised to inform instructional decision-making and future research about active learning in college science courses.     

Peer Group Norms and Accountability Moderate the Effect of School Norms on Children's Intergroup Attitudes

The present study examined the interactive effects of school norms, peer norms, and accountability on children's intergroup attitudes. Participants (n = 229) aged 5–11 years, in a between‐subjects design, were randomly assigned to a peer group with an inclusion or exclusion norm, learned their school either had an inclusion norm or not, and were accountable to either their peer group, teachers, or nobody. Findings indicated, irrespective of age, that an inclusive school norm was less effective when the peer group had an exclusive norm and children were held accountable to their peers or teachers. These findings support social identity development theory (D. Nesdale, 2004, 2007), which expects both the in‐group peer and school norm to influence children's intergroup attitudes.     

Gender-Specific Linkages of Affective Social Competence With Peer Relations in Preschool Children

Research Findings: We examined whether affective social competence, or the ability to effectively send and receive emotional signals and to manage one's own emotional experience, contributes to preschool children's peer relations. Forty-two previously unacquainted preschoolers were observed while participating in a week-long playschool. Greater nonstereotypical emotion knowledge was related to girls' popularity and boys' likelihood of having a reciprocal friendship. Girls with greater skill at sending emotional communications and managing emotions were more likely to have a reciprocal friendship. Boys who were better at managing emotions compared to others in their group were less popular. The role of social context in the influence of affective social competence on children's peer relations is discussed. Practice or Policy: Results have implications for early childhood educators' promotion of children's socioemotional skills.     

Neurobiological Sensitivity to Social Rewards and Punishments Moderates Link Between Peer Norms and Adolescent Risk Taking

Although peer influence is a strong predictor of adolescents’ risk-taking behaviors, not all adolescents are susceptible to their peer group. One hundred and thirty-six adolescents (M_age = 12.79 years) completed an fMRI scan, measures of perceived peer group norms, and engagement in risky behavior. Ventral striatum (VS) sensitivity when anticipating social rewards and avoiding social punishments significantly moderated the association between perceived peer norms and adolescents’ own risk behaviors. Perceptions of more deviant peer norms were associated with increased risky behavior, but only for adolescents with high VS sensitivity; adolescents with low VS sensitivity were resilient to deviant peer norms, showing low risk taking regardless of peer context. Findings provide a novel contribution to the study of peer influence susceptibility.     

Anchoring effects on prospective and retrospective metacomprehension judgments as a function of peer performance information

Two experiments were conducted to investigate anchoring effects on metacomprehension judgments as a function of fictitious information participants received about past peer performance. In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three anchor groups that, in some cases, provided past peer performance averages in terms of a percentage: a high anchor (85%) a low anchor (55%), and no anchor. Results showed that relative to the no anchor group, the low anchor group made significantly lower prospective judgments whereas the high anchor group did not make significantly higher prospective judgments. With a high anchor of greater magnitude (95%), Experiment 2 demonstrated more pronounced anchoring effects on prospective judgments: Relative to the no anchor group, the low anchor group made significantly lower judgments and the high anchor group made significantly higher judgments. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that anchoring effects occurred even on retrospective judgments. Overall, the results showed that peer performance information can serve as an anchoring point for metacomprehension judgments and the anchoring effects are tenacious given that they can even affect retrospective judgments of performance.     

Peer Relations and Social Adjustment of Latino and Chinese Children in Head Start Classrooms

Research Findings: The present study investigated the role of ethnic similarity in the peer preferences and play quality of Latino and Chinese children enrolled in Head Start classrooms and the relationship between peer acceptance and social adjustment in these groups. Participants were 244 children (M = 4.6 years old) from Head Start preschools located in the greater Los Angeles area. Results showed that both Chinese and Latino children played more with same-ethnic than cross-ethnic peers, but only Latino children showed same-ethnic preferences in friendship nominations. Play dyads of the same ethnic group engaged in more complex play than those of different ethnic groups. Practice or Policy: Findings suggest that preferences for same-ethnic peers are starting to emerge in preschool classrooms. In addition, prosocial behaviors may be important for all children, regardless of ethnicity, to gain peer acceptance. Implications for practice are addressed.     

Chemistry Is in the News: assessing intra‐group peer review

Interdisciplinarity is rapidly becoming a norm within both the professional and academic worlds, and the ability to collaborate is becoming an essential skill for all graduates. Chemistry Is in the News (CIITN) is a curriculum that aims to teach students this skill by engaging student collaborative groups in a project that ties real world events and topics to the content taught in the classroom. While the collaborative activity has been successful in many ways, the challenge of maintaining individual accountability within the collaborative activity has persisted. The need to balance the tension between promoting collaboration and maintaining individual performance standards drove the development of an intra‐group peer review system. In developing this peer review system, four goals guide the design: the desire to promote collaboration, to produce a differentiated score among group members reflecting the contribution each person made, to improve student perception of fairness and accuracy in the assessment process of CIITN and to avoid artificially inflating students’ grades. The system was assessed in the winter semester of 2004 in a large lecture course at a major Midwestern university via student questionnaires and the CIITN scores. Evidence is provided to suggest that the intra‐group peer review system has met its core goals.     

Students’ learning outcomes and peer rating accuracy in compulsory and voluntary online peer assessment

Peer assessment can be conducted online with rapid development of online learning technology. The current study was conducted empirically to investigate peer rating accuracy and student learning outcomes in online peer assessments, comparing compulsory and voluntary peer assessment. Section 1 (N?=?93) was assigned to the voluntary group and Section 2 (N?=?31) was assigned to the compulsory group. The results showed the voluntary group scored significantly higher than the compulsory group in the final task of the course, while there was no significant difference on the final task score increase. Students who participated in the voluntary group provided more accurate scores (i.e. peer rater accuracy) than those who participated in the compulsory group. The peer score leniency/severity rating, comparing peer assigned scores with the teacher assigned scores, were generally consistent with the peer rater accuracy results. The current study offers insights for researchers who are interested in studying the effect of online peer assessment activities. The results are also of interest for instructors who may want to conduct peer assessments in online courses and are choosing between compulsory and voluntary formats.     

The impact of resource programs upon the self-concept and peer acceptance of learning disabled children

The purpose of the study was to measure the impact of resource interventions upon the level of peer acceptance and self-concept. Subjects were 82 children from 5 elementary schools in central Pennsylvania. The Experimental group (N = 41) consisted of learning disabled children in regular classes with resource room interventions. The Control group (N = 41) consisted of nonlearning disabled children stratified by sex and classrooms. All subjects were group administered a self-concept measure and a peer acceptance measure early in the school year and again at the end of the school year. Separate 3-way analysis of variances with repeated measures revealed that the LD children were significantly lower in self-concept scores and peer acceptance ratings at both testing occasions than were the nonLD children. The resource based program did not result in significant changes in either self-concept or peer acceptance after one year for the LD group.     

The knowledge gap: examining the rhetoric and implementation of peer education for HIV prevention in Myanmar

In this paper, I report on an examination of the rhetoric and implementation of peer education in Myanmar. I demonstrate that while there was widespread consistency on interviewees' views of what peer education should involve, there was a significant gap between this rhetoric and the ways in which peer education was implemented, particularly in relation to the training of peer educators. It is my argument that this gap occurred because of failure to utilise, or even recognise, a particular form of knowledge: knowledge as phronesis, which is most commonly translated as ‘practical wisdom’ and incorporates factual, emotional and experiential knowledge. Instead, as I show, the pedagogic processes in use in peer education practice in Myanmar drew on an (unexpressed) understanding of knowledge as episteme: a form of knowledge that is facts-based, technical and presumed objective.     

Peer Influence on Ethnic‐Racial Identity Development: A Multi‐Site Investigation

The peer context features prominently in theory, and increasingly in empirical research, about ethnic‐racial identity (ERI) development, but no studies have assessed peer influence on ERI using methods designed to properly assess peer influence. We examined peer influence on ERI centrality, private, and public regard using longitudinal social network analysis. Data were drawn from two sites: a predominantly Latina/o Southwestern (SW) school (N = 1034; Mage = 12.10) and a diverse Midwestern (MW) school (N = 513; Mage = 11.99). Findings showed that peers influenced each other's public regard over time at both sites. However, peer influence on centrality was evident in the SW site, whereas peer influence on private regard was evident in the MW site. Importantly, peer influence was evident after controlling for selection effects. Our integration of developmental, contextual, and social network perspectives offers a fruitful approach to explicate how ERI content may shift in early adolescence as a function of peer influence.     

A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback and of various peer feedback forms in a secondary school writing curriculum

This study examines whether peer feedback can be a substitute for teacher feedback and which measures can be taken to improve its effectiveness. A pre‐test post‐test control group design examined the long‐term learning effects of individual peer feedback and of collective teacher feedback on writing assignments in secondary education. Moreover, it examined the added value of a priori question forms and a posteriori reply forms aimed at supporting the assessee's response to peer feedback. The study supports the ‘non‐inferiority’ hypothesis of there being no significant difference in students’ progress after plain substitutional peer feedback or teacher feedback. Both groups (plain peer feedback and teacher feedback), however, improved significantly less than the groups that worked with question or reply forms, confirming the added‐value of these forms. Almost half of the students found the received peer feedback helpful, but less than a quarter considered giving feedback an aid in their own learning process.     

Student leadership in small group science inquiry

Background: Science educators have sought to structure collaborative inquiry learning through the assignment of static group roles. This structural approach to student grouping oversimplifies the complexities of peer collaboration and overlooks the highly dynamic nature of group activity.

Purpose: This study addresses this issue of oversimplification of group dynamics by examining the social leadership structures that emerge in small student groups during science inquiry.

Sample: Two small student groups investigating the burning of a candle under a jar participated in this study.

Design and method: We used a mixed-method research approach that combined computational discourse analysis (computational quantification of social aspects of small group discussions) with microethnography (qualitative, in-depth examination of group discussions).

Results: While in one group social leadership was decentralized (i.e., students shared control over topics and tasks), the second group was dominated by a male student (centralized social leadership). Further, decentralized social leadership was found to be paralleled by higher levels of student cognitive engagement.

Conclusions: It is argued that computational discourse analysis can provide science educators with a powerful means of developing pedagogical models of collaborative science learning that take into account the emergent nature of group structures and highly fluid nature of student collaboration.     

Student attitudes that predict participation in peer assessment

Peer assessment has been widely applied to actively engage students in learning to write. However, sometimes students resist peer assessment. This study explores reviewers’ attitudes and other underlying factors that influence students’ participation in online peer assessment. Participants were 234 Chinese undergraduates from two different academic backgrounds: engineering majors (n = 168) and English majors (n = 66). Gender, academic background and prior experience with peer assessment were all related to participation levels. Moreover, factor analyses revealed three attitudinal factors: (1) positive attitude (a general endorsement of the benefits of peer assessment), (2) interpersonal negative (concerns about the negative effects on interpersonal relationships), and (3) procedural negative (doubts about the procedural rationality of peer assessment). Among the attitudinal factors, procedural negative was negatively associated with participation, as expected. Interestingly, interpersonal negative was associated with greater participation, and positive attitude was associated with lower participation, in part because students worked hard on each review rather than doing many reviews superficially. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Teach Me and I May Remember,Involve Me and I Learn: Four Approaches to Peer Mentoring in Sport Psychology

ABSTRACT

Many students experience difficulties during their graduate education. Scholars have proposed mentoring as one potential strategy to support them. While often assumed to be the sole responsibility of faculty, graduate students are also in a position to provide meaningful mentorship to their peers. Thus, the purpose of the current article is to focus on the relationship between peer mentor and mentee and provide those interested in becoming peer mentors during their graduate training with a guide to deliberately structure their interactions and relationships with mentees. More specifically, the approaches of four former peer mentors are presented. These are all grounded in theory and have been labeled: (a) autonomy-supportive mentoring, (b) mentoring with resonance, (c) community-based mentoring, and (d) self-concept-based mentoring.