A Systematic Review of Peer-Mediated Interventions on the Academic Achievement of Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders

The purpose of this review is to report on the effectiveness of peer-mediated interventions on academic outcomes for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). CEC standards for evidence-based practices were used for determination of methodologically sound studies. Twenty-four studies involving 288 participants met inclusionary criteria. For the majority of the studies, the intervention was implemented by the classroom teacher. In addition, of the 24 studies, three quarters took place in some of the most restrictive settings available for students with EBD. Overall, peermediated interventions demonstrated medium effect size gains (Percent of non-overlapping data [PND] 83%; Standard Mean Difference [SMD] 2.03; TauU 0.77). When assessing the effectiveness of peer-mediated interventions for specific academic content areas, the most consistent gains were observed in spelling (PND 86%; SMD 2.6; Tau-U 0.77), math (PND 92%; SMD 1.68; Tau-U 0.70), reading (PND 80%; SMD 1.83; Tau-U 0.82), and English (PND 69%; SMD 2.10; Tau-U 0.82). In addition, results showed that meaningful gains were observed regardless of the role students were assigned, including tutor, tutee, or for students alternating between roles.