Reciprocal Peer Tutoring: An Analysis of "Teacher" and "Student" Interactions as a Function of Training and Experience

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between peer-tutoring interactions of dyads with experience in a reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) program in mathematics, versus dyads with no experience 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 with mathematics achievement and student reports of behavioral conduct and social competence. Forty academically at-risk fourth- and fifth-graders from an urban elementary school were randomly assigned to either RPT or PC conditions. Group difference data revealed that RPT participants displayed significantly higher rates of mathematics achievement, self-report of social acceptance and behavioral conduct and higher rates of observed teacher and student task-related behavior as compared to controls. Correlational analyses showed that peer student active engagement in academic activity was positively related to curriculum-based mathematics test scores. Unique to the literature on peer tutoring interactions is this study's examination of the relationship between observations of student interactions and student self-report of social acceptance and conduct.