M. Ginsburgblock et J. Fantuzzo, RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING - AN ANALYSIS OF TEACHER AND STUDENT INTERACTIONS AS A FUNCTION OF TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE, School psychology quarterly, 12(2), 1997, pp. 134-149
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between
peer-tutoring interactions of dyads with experience in a reciprocal pe
er tutoring (RPT) program in mathematics, versus dyads with no experie
nce in RPT. It was hypothesized that students who participated in the
RPT condition would exhibit significantly greater amounts of behaviors
associated with effective peer teaching than students in the Practice
Control (PC) condition and that these behaviors would be associated w
ith mathematics achievement and student reports of behavioral conduct
and social competence. Forty academically at-risk fourth- and fifth-gr
aders from an urban elementary school were randomly assigned to either
RPT or PC conditions. Group difference data revealed that RPT partici
pants displayed significantly higher rates of mathematics achievement,
self-report of social acceptance and behavioral conduct and higher ra
tes of observed teacher and student task-related behavior as compared
to controls, Correlational analyses showed that peer student active en
gagement in academic activity was positively related to curriculum-bas
ed mathematics test scores. Unique to the literature on peer tutoring
interactions is this study's examination of the relationship between o
bservations of student interactions and student self-report of social
acceptance and conduct.