Peer Learning in Higher Education

Learning from and with Each Other

David Boud, Ruth Cohen, Jane (all of the University of Technology Sampson, Boud, David, Ruth Cohen, Sampson, Jane (all of the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135383534
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

While peer learning is often used informally by students - and for many can form an essential part of their HE experience - this book discusses methods of developing more effective learning through the systematic implementation of peer learning approaches.

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Introduction: making the move to peer learning

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David Boud

In everyday life we continually learn from each other. For most of the things we need in our working and personal lives we find enough information and guidance from friends and colleagues. It is relatively uncommon to take a course or consult a teacher. We draw upon whatever resources we need wherever we can find them. Most people who use word-processing packages have not studied them formally: they receive tips from others, observe what they do and ask questions. Similarly, when buying a car, reviews in newspapers or magazines might be read, owners of cars of the type wanted consulted and sales staff listened to.

It might be argued that these are not necessarily the most efficient ways to go about learning and that they do not always lead to us obtaining accurate information, but they do meet the needs of most people in a timely and convenient fashion. The advantage in learning from people we know is that they are, or have been, in a similar position to ourselves. They have faced the same challenges as we have in the same context, they talk to us in our own language and we can ask them what may appear, in other situations, to be silly questions.

Learning from each other is not only a feature of informal learning, it occurs in all courses at all levels. Students have conversations about what they are learning inside and outside classrooms whether teachers are aware of it or not. The first approach, when stuck on a problem, is normally to ask another student, not the teacher. Not only can they provide each other with useful information but sharing the experience of learning also makes it less burdensome and more enjoyable. The power of peer learning is manifest daily in popular culture and many books and movies illustrate its influence. The Paper Chase is a classic example of a feature film that portrays students learning from each other in competitive professional courses.

As teachers, we often fool ourselves in thinking that what we do is necessarily more important for student learning than other activities in which they engage. Our role is vital. However, if we place ourselves in the position of mediating all that students need to know, we not only create unrealistic expectations but we potentially deskill students by preventing them from developing the vital skills of effectively learning from each other needed in life and work. The skill of obtaining accurate information is not learned by being given accurate information by a teacher but through practice in discerning how to judge the accuracy of the information we receive.

This book is based on the assumption that there is considerable benefit in taking what we know of the value of informal peer learning, making it explicit and using it more directly in the design and conduct of higher education courses. Formalizing the informal is not intended to give teachers a more prominent or controlling role in informal learning, but to realize the potential benefits of peer learning so that all students can benefit from it, not just those who are socially adept or best networked. It is neither possible nor desirable to formalize all aspects of peer learning. However, quite modest moves in that direction can have a large impact on learning compared to the effort expended by teachers.

The book is also based on the premise that peer learning – that is, learning with and from each other – is a necessary and important aspect of all courses. The role it plays varies widely and the forms it takes are very diverse, but without it students gain an impoverished education.

The aim of the book is to explore the use of peer learning in formal courses. It addresses questions such as:

● What is peer learning and what is it good for?

● How can it best be fostered?

● What issues need to be considered by teachers and students?

It draws on the direct experience of the authors in using peer learning in their own courses and in studying its effects. The focus is on higher education but many of the ideas are applicable more widely.

What is peer learning and why is it important?

Peer learning is not a single, undifferentiated educational strategy. It encompasses a broad sweep of activities. For example, researchers from the University of Ulster identified 10 different models of peer learning (Griffiths, Houston and Lazenbatt, 1995). These ranged from the traditional proctor model, in which senior students tutor junior students, to the more innovative learning cells, in which students in the same year form partnerships to assist each other with both course content and personal concerns. Other models involved discussion seminars, private study groups, parrainage (a buddy system) or counselling, peer-assessment schemes, collaborative project or laboratory work, projects in different sized (cascading) groups, workplace mentoring and community activities.

The term ‘peer learning’, however, remains abstract. The sense in which we use it here suggests a two-way, reciprocal learning activity. Peer learning should be mutually beneficial and involve the sharing of knowledge, ideas and experience between the participants. It can be described as a way of moving beyond independent to interdependent or mutual learning (Boud, 1988).

Students learn a great deal by explaining their ideas to others and by participating in activities in which they can learn from their peers. They develop skills in organizing and planning learning activities, working collaboratively with others, giving and receiving feedback and evaluating their own learning. Peer learning is becoming an increasingly important part of many courses, and it is being used in a variety of contexts and disciplines in many countries.

The potential of peer learning is starting to be realized, but examination of the ways in which it is used in existing courses suggests that practices are often introduced in an ad hoc way, without consideration of their implications. When such practices are used unsystematically, students unfamiliar with this approach become confused about what they are supposed to be doing, they miss opportunities for learning altogether, and fail to develop the skills expected of them. Much peer learning occurs informally without staff involvement, and students who are already effective learners tend to benefit disproportionately when it is left to chance.

Formalized peer learning can help students learn effectively. At a time when university resources are stretched and demands upon staff are increasing, it offers students the opportunity to learn from each other. It gives them considerably more practice than traditional teaching and learning methods in taking responsibility for their own learning and, more generally, learning how to learn. It is not a substitute for teaching and activities designed and conducted by staff members, but an important addition to the repertoire of teaching and learning activities that can enhance the quality of education.

It is important to consider who are the ‘peers’ in peer learning. Generally, peers are other people in a similar situation to each other who do not have a role in that situation as teacher or expert practitioner. They may have considerable experience and expertise or they may have relatively little. They share the status as fellow learners and they are accepted as such. Most importantly, they do not have power over each other by virtue of their position or responsibilities. Throughout the book we will be discussing the role of students who are in the same classes as those from whom they are learning.

Peer teaching, or peer tutoring, is a far more instrumental strategy in which advanced students, or those in later years, take on a limited instructional role. It often requires some form of credit or payment for the person acting as the teacher. Peer teaching is a well-established practice in many universities, whereas reciprocal peer learning is often considered to be incidental – a component of other more familiar strategies, such as the discussion group (see, for example, Brookfield and Preskill, 1999). As a consequence, until recently, reciprocal peer learning has not been identified as a phenomenon in its own right that might be used to students' advantage.

Reciprocal peer learning typically involves students within a given class or cohort. This makes peer learning relatively easy to organize because there are fewer timetabling problems. There is also no need to pay or reward with credit the more experienced students responsible for peer teaching. Students in reciprocal peer learning are by definition peers, and so there is less confusion about roles compared with situations in which one of the ‘peers’ is a senior student, or is in an advanced class, or has special expertise.

Reciprocal peer learning emphasizes students simultaneously learning and contributing to other students' learning. Such communication is based on mutual experience and so they are better able to make equal contributions. It more closely approximates to Habermas' notion of an ‘ideal speech act’ in which issues of power and domination are less prominent than when one party has a designated ‘teaching’ role and thus takes on a particular kind of authority for the duration of the activity.

We define peer learning in its broadest sense, then, as ‘students learning from and with each other in both formal and informal ways’. The emphasis is on the learning process, including the emotional support that learners offer each other, as much as the learning task itself. In peer teaching the roles of teacher and learner are fixed, whereas in peer learning they are either undefined or may shift during the course of the learning experience. Staff may be actively involved as group facilitators or they may simply initiate student-directed activities such as workshops or learning partnerships.

According to Topping's review of literature, surprisingly little research has been done into either dyadic reciprocal peer tutoring or same-year group tutoring (Topping, 1996). He identified only 10 studies, all with a very narrow, empirical focus. This suggests that the teaching model, rather than the learning model, is still the most common way of understanding how students assist each other. Although the teaching model has value, we must also consider the learning process itself if we want to make the best use of peers as resources for learning.

As mentioned earlier, it is important to recognize that peer learning is not a single practice. It covers a wide range of different activities each of which can be combined with others in different ways to suit the needs of a particular course. It is like peer assessment in this regard (Falchikov, 2001) and it is unfortunately similarly misunderstood as referring to a particular practice.

Why do we need to focus now on peer learning?

There are both pragmatic reasons and reasons of principle for the current focus on peer learning in university courses. It would be naive to ignore the most pressing pragmatic reason even though it has little to do with concerns about teaching and learning. It is that in many countries there is considerable pressure on university funding, which has lead to staff being required to teach more students without diminution in the quality of the student learning. This has prompted a search for teaching and learning strategies that might help staff to cope with larger student numbers without increasing their overall workload. Peer learning is promising because it appears to maintain or increase student learning with less input from staff.

We are not so cynical as to think that this has been the prime motive driving interest in peer learning. Concurrent with this financial pressure has been a reassessment of the goals of university courses and new emphasis has been placed on generic learning outcomes. Employers now want graduates who possess a broader range of skills and abilities to communicate effectively beyond their specialization, and so courses are now expected to develop in students what are variously termed transferable skills (Assiter, 1995), key competencies (Mayer, 1992), generic attributes (Wright, 1995) or capabilities (Stephenson and Yorke, 1998). These are part of a repertoire of skills and strategies designed to foster lifelong learning in the student. Candy, Crebert and O'Leary (1994: p. xii) cited ‘peer-assisted and self-directed learning’ as the first of five teaching methods in undergraduate courses that encourage graduates to become lifelong learners, as well as helping them to develop ‘reflective practice and critical self-awareness’.

Technology is now an important driver towards the use of peer learning. Effective courses do not involve the delivery of substantial amounts of content through new media (Stephenson, 2001). Web-based activities appear to be most effective when there is direct interaction between staff and students and among students themselves. The nature of the Web as a medium means that it is impossible for a teacher to personally deal with a large number of interactions between a teacher and individual students. This soon becomes far more time consuming than any form of conventional teaching. How then is the need for interaction reconciled with the limitations on the capacity of teaching staff? Peer learning provides a key solution to this dilemma. It is possible for tutors to deal with the volume of interaction emerging from groups of students working together in a way that is not realistic with individuals.

In addition to these ‘mainstream’ motives, it is also argued that collective forms of peer learning suit some students better than the individualistic teaching and learning practices of traditional courses (Slavin, 1995; Chalmers and Volet, 1997). This has been particularly true for women and students from some cultural backgrounds, as peer learning activities value cooperation within groups above competition and encourages greater respect for the varied experiences and backgrounds of the participants.

How does peer learning link to other ideas and practices?

A common misconception is that peer learning is simply about using group work in courses. This is not surprising, as some of the strongest proponents of group work are also major scholars of cooperative learning (Johnson and Johnson, 1997). Of course group work does involve peers learning from each other (Jaques, 2000), but much peer learning also occurs on a one-to-one basis and peer learning need not be primarily about learning to work in groups.

There are a number of other practices discussed particularly in the North American literature, which have some similarities to peer learning. These include cooperative learning and collaborative learning. There is a substantial literature on cooperative learning (for example, Jacob, 1999) and it is discussed in best selling books, such as Johnson and Johnson (1997). However, most of the applications are not in higher education and the role of the teacher is much stronger than in the examples we will be discussing here.

Cooperative learning grew out...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: making the move to peer learning
• Part one – Basic considerations
• Part two – Case studies
• Author index
• Subject index