Peer-Assisted Student Support: A new approach to learning

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Peer-Assisted Student Support:A new approach to learningGary Packham & Christopher MillerPublished online: 03 Aug 2010.

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Journal of Further and Higher Education, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2000

Peer-Assisted Student Support:a new approach to learningGARY PACKHAM & CHRISTOPHER MILLERPASS Coordinators, University of Glamorgan, Business School,

Trefforest CF37 1DL, Wales

ABSTRACT The Great Britain Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education (1997)

highlighted the signi® cant role that higher education would be required to play in providing

the United Kingdom with individuals that could consistently meet the demands of a global

market place. Higher education institutions have been entrusted with the task of removing

existing barriers to learning and implementing initiatives that will enable students to achieve

beyond current expectations. A current initiative by the University of Glamorgan aims to

meet some of the challenges laid down by the Great Britain Committee of Enquiry into

Higher Education (1997). Peer-Assisted Student Support (PASS) is a scheme directed at

facilitating student-centred learning. The initiative encourages students to take responsibility

for the learning process in terms of academic achievement and social development. This

article offers a unique insight into the scheme, detailing demographic and subject attendance

patterns during Semester B of the 1997/98 academic year. Furthermore, the research

undertaken also builds on previous work investigating the effect of support mechanisms on

academic performance. The article reports that the scheme is primarily dominated by female

attendees and students in the under-21 age group. Moreover, whilst the research substanti-

ates previous claims that schemes such as PASS have a positive effect on academic

performance, the nature of academic appraisal within the context studied suggests that this

generalisation can only be extended to coursework-related assessment.

Introduction

Globalisation suggests that knowledge will become increasingly important in sus-taining a nation’s competitive advantage. It is imperative that the skills and capabil-ities of the United Kingdom’s (UK) workforce are constantly updated andaugmented to meet this challenge. Higher education is crucial to this process and theGreat Britain Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education (1997) outlined theimportance of this role in developing a society that is committed to lifelong learning.

Consequently, higher education institutions (HEIs) are being called upon toinnovate the learning process and implement creative strategies to satisfy the needsof various stakeholders. Moreover, the introduction of tuition fees and the existenceof other ® nancial constraints have seen students simultaneously adopt the role ofboth a customer and product of HEIs (Miller & Packham, 1999). The Great Britain

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56 G. Packham & C. Miller

Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education (1997) highlights that institutions

should be adaptive and embrace contemporary approaches to student learning in

order to enhance the overall employability of the graduate. In addition, it is argued

that the UK workforce must have the ability to be ¯ exible, instigate change and,

more importantly, possess the motivation to accumulate the bene® ts of lifelong

learning. In fact, it is contended that there is a growing interdependence between

students, HEIs, employers and the state of the national economy (Great Britain

Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, 1997). As a result, HEIs have been

entrusted with the role of removing existing barriers to learning and implementing

new initiatives that will enable students to achieve beyond current expectations. This

issue is of particular interest to Wales, where a combination of increasing enrolments

and a lack of funding for the development of support mechanisms may adversely

affect the competitiveness of the region (Miller & Packham, 1999).

The Genesis of Peer-Assisted Student Support

Some of the recommendations of the Great Britain Committee of Enquiry into

Higher Education (1997) can be applied to the concept of student-centred learning.

Knowles (1972) suggests that people maximise learning when the education process

directly focuses on what the learner wants to learn as opposed to what the teacher

wants to teach. Student-centred learning facilitates this process and allows the

individual to take responsibility for the accumulation of personal skills and knowl-

edge. Furthermore, student-centred learning encourages re¯ ection, enabling the

learner to generalise principles for further action from the experiential learning

process (Schon, 1983; Kolb, 1984).

Supplemental instruction (SI) has been in existence in the United States since the

early 1970s, promoting the bene® ts of student-centred learning in terms of academic

achievement and social development (Congos & Schoeps, 1993). SI is unique.

Students are encouraged to verbalise explanations and attempt group problem-

solving in order to facilitate and promote individual and collective learning (Pryor,

1989). Evidence suggests that, subject to competent coordination and facilitation, SI

has a positive effect upon student performance (Congos & Schoeps, 1993). SI has

since been adapted to the British educational system, experiencing similar results in

respect of improved student performance (Bidgood, 1992; Miller & Packham,

1999). The University of Glamorgan has adapted the SI scheme within the Business

School. The scheme is currently marketed as the Peer-Assisted Student Support

Scheme (PASS).

The aim of this article is to illustrate how a single HEI, the University of

Glamorgan, has achieved relative success in updating its existing student support

mechanisms. The article builds on previous work by Gibbon and Saunders (1998)

and Miller and Packham (1999) concerning the impact of Peer-Assisted Student

Support (PASS) upon the ® rst-year cohort attending the Business School in terms

of demographic attendance, temporal attendance patterns and subject coverage.

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Peer-Assisted Student Support 57

This article will also assess the impact of PASS upon the learning process and

provide a tentative insight into the initiative’s effect upon academic performance.

PASS at the University of Glamorgan

The university’ s PASS scheme is now in its ® fth year of operation. During this

period the scheme has provided student-led mentoring sessions to support the

academic and social development of ® rst-year business students. The scheme is

primarily operated by students for the bene® t of students and aims to assist:

· students who are having dif® culties with certain aspects of course material;· in the improvement of grades and social development; and· in increasing the overall graduation grade and subsequent employability of

students.

The scheme is not offered as a substitute for existing lectures or seminars but that

of a support service to enhance student-centred learning. Students recruited from

the second year assist the ® rst-year cohort with current academic dif® culties.

Mentoring and attendance is entirely voluntary. The informality of the scheme offers

students a user-friendly environment in which to voice concerns and to dictate the

content of sessions. Sessions are run to a ¯ exible agenda and students decide what

support is required. First-year students are also encouraged to form self-help groups

to assist each other in the learning process.

Previous evidence suggests that the demand for PASS is assignment driven

(Gibbon & Saunders, 1998; Miller & Packham, 1999). In this sense, whilst the

scheme professes to provide more than just advice and guidance as to assignment

content, students are using the scheme to meet their immediate academic needs.

Consequently, mentors are now being given training and guidance as to what advice

can be imparted to attendees in an attempt to reverse this trend and promote the

intrinsic bene® ts associated with student-centred learning. Research has also high-

lighted that sessions dealing with subjects deemed to be of high academic content

dominate attendance patterns (Gibbon & Saunders, 1998; Miller & Packham,

1999). Previous observations have noted that Quantitative Methods (QM) and

Economics have accounted for a disproportionate number of attendances. Previous

results also show that PASS sessions are female dominated and that, in general,

female students tend to visit sessions in groups, whilst male attendance is often

solitary (Miller & Packham, 1999).

The University of Glamorgan proactively encourages students to develop

individual skills and capabilities, and the PASS initiative is viewed as an integral

part of the support mechanisms current provided by the Business School. The

PASS scheme assists in directing, guiding and facilitating the learning process,

enabling students to effectively assimilate information and develop comprehension.

Experts have recognised that there is a need to retain students and that greater

emphasis needs to be placed on schemes that negate student failure (Bidgood,

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1992). It is to the bene® t of the university, the labour market and to individuals thatretention and development instruments are in place to realise the full potential ofstudent cohorts.

Research Strategy

The results presented in this article relate to Semester B of the 1997/98 academicyear. The Business School’s ® rst-year cohort comprised 247 full and part-timestudents (University of Glamorgan Academic Registry, 1997). During the periodFebruary to May 1998 the PASS scheme instigated support sessions to assiststudents in QM, Marketing (MA), Organisational Behaviour (OB), InformationTechnology (IT) and Accounts (ACC).

The scheme ran for a nine-week period from 22 February to 15 May 1998. Fourone-hour sessions were implemented to cover the above subjects. These subjectswere chosen because they constitute the modules studied by all ® rst-year studentsduring Semester B. All subjects were separated except for MA and IT, which werecombined due to logistical considerations and evidence that suggested that in thepast the MA module did not attract a great deal of interest. All sessions were studentled.

The informality of PASS restricted the information that could be collected andrealistically subjected to quantitative analysis. The primary purpose of data collec-tion was therefore to measure attendance patterns and assist in the development offuture PASS strategies. Consequently, an informal register was maintained, record-ing basic information in regard to attendance in terms of subject, gender and age. Arecord was also kept as to whether participants were returning students or ® rst-timeattendees. The register was also designed to provide mentors with the opportunityto provide feedback concerning student comment about the provision of PASS.

In addition, a small quota sample was obtained to investigate whether regularattendance to PASS had any positive effect on performance. The sample identi® ed15 students who had attended three or more QM PASS sessions. Mean scores werecollected in regard to coursework, examination and overall grades. Moreover, thesample frame was chosen to mirror previous observations that suggested that PASSattendance was dominated by females in the under-21 age group.

Data Analysis

A total of 80 different students accounted for the 256 PASS attendances recordedin Semester B. The average weekly attendance observed within this time frame was28.44 students with a standard deviation of 14.63 attendees per week. This averageequates to 11.11% of the ® rst-year cohort per week and, more signi® cantly, evidencesuggests that 32.38% of ® rst-year students attending a business-related degreevisited at least one PASS session. Furthermore, it can be concluded that of the 256attendees recorded, 68.75% of observed attendance refers to students who attendedat least two PASS sessions. During the ® rst ® ve weeks of analysis overall attendancewas relatively consistent with the exception of week 8 (see Fig. 1) in which,

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60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Num

ber

of a

ttend

ees

54 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Semester B: week number

Weekly attendance


FIG. 1. Weekly attendance.

surprisingly, zero attendance was recorded. Attendance during the latter half of thesemester, however, was considerably higher with an average of 37.25 attendees perweek and a reduced standard deviation of 10.87 attendees. It is also interesting tonote that during this period a total of 42.5% of the total number of differing studentsattended their ® rst PASS session. Qualitative investigation into this phenomenonrevealed that this trend could be explained through students having problems withthe more academically challenging aspects of QM and a desire to improve under-standing of certain subject material prior to examination.

Table I expresses weekly attendance to a PASS session in terms of gender. Theresearch undertaken highlights that 73.44% of all attendees were female and that, ingeneral, female attendees exceeded male attendees by a ratio of 2.76 to 1. Theanalysis of the total number of different students attending a PASS session indicatesa similar pattern with 75% of total students being female and a female to male ratioof exactly 3 to 1. These ® ndings can be deemed of particular interest as universityenrolment statistics for the 1997/98 academic year indicate that there is a 50/50gender distribution (University of Glamorgan Academic Registry, 1997). General

TABLE I. Weekly attendance by gender

Number of attendees Number of different students

Week number Male Female Male Female

4 9 7 9 75 9 27 2 176 8 16 0 67 6 25 0 58 0 0 0 09 4 22 0 2

10 9 28 6 1311 13 39 2 312 10 24 1 7

Total 68 188 20 60

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TABLE II. Attendance by age

Number of attendees Number of different students

Age group Male Female Male Female

Under 21 46 162 13 5521 or over 22 26 7 5

Total 68 188 20 60

observations of PASS sessions highlighted that, whilst female attendance was groupled, male attendance to sessions was often solitary or as part of a female-dominatedgroup.

PASS attendance was dominated by the students in the under-21 age group(Table II). This age group accounted for 81.25% of all attendance, compared withonly 18.75% of attending students being categorised as mature students (Universityof Glamorgan Academic Registry, 1997). This observation can partly be explainedby analysing student enrolment statistics. During the 1997/98 academic year 73.3%of total student enrolments were classi® ed as being in the under-21 age group(University of Glamorgan Academic Registry, 1997). An analysis of age group, interms of the total number of different students attending, however, reveals that 85%of the students fall within the under-21 age category and hence this attendancepattern can be considered signi® cant. Moreover, it is interesting to note that only8.33% of female students fell into the over-21 age group compared to 35% of malestudents.

Table III provides an overview of PASS subjects attended by students. QM wasthe most frequented PASS session, accounting for 76.56% of all attendees. Thispattern also emerges from an analysis of the total number of students attendingPASS sessions during the semester, with 75% of students attending a QM PASSsession. The ® gures of signi® cance, in terms of the number of attendees, are QMand IT. The ® ndings indicate that females dominate sessions in QM in terms of thenumber of differing students, offering a ratio of 3.28 to 1. Conversely, the male tofemale ratio in IT is dissimilar in this respect, mirroring expected attendance giventhe 50/50 gender distribution of the cohort within the Business School (Universityof Glamorgan Academic Registry, 1997). Overall attendance for IT, however,suggests that females returning for support considerably outweigh male students. Itis evident that the QM attendance pattern is signi® cant.

Table IV expresses weekly attendance by subject area. Total weekly attendanceduring the semester was dominated by students requiring QM support. In fact theresearch shows that QM accounted for over 58% of all weekly attendance ® gures.Moreover if weeks 5, 9 and 10 are isolated, QM accounts for over 84% of all weeklyattendance, and general observations indicate that students were expressing concernin regard to course material during these time periods. The attendance of studentsto OB, ACC and IT was also of interest for different reasons. IT attendance ingeneral was erratic, whereas attendance for OB dissipated after week 6. ACC

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TABLE III. Attendance by subject area /gender

Number of attendances Number of differing students

Subject area Male Female Total Male Female Total

QM 52 144 196 14 46 60IT 15 29 44 5 4 9MA 0 1 1 0 1 1ACC 1 7 8 1 3 4OB 0 7 7 0 6 6

Total 68 188 256 20 60 80

attendance revealed that support was required at only two periods within thesemester. Support for the MA module was not deemed to require support from thecohort.

Table V compares the relative performance of students attending at least threePASS sessions and the ® rst-year cohort in the subject of QM. It is evident fromTable V that the small sample of students that attended at least three PASS sessionsin QM revealed particularly interesting results when compared to the performanceof the ® rst-year cohort as a whole. The mean percentage mark of 63.58% wasconsiderable higher than that of 53.83% recorded for the ® rst-year cohort. Inaddition, evidence suggests that this difference is associated with the superiorperformance of the sample in assignment-driven assessment. In fact, whilst the meanscore for coursework for PASS attendees was 24.09% higher than the courseworkmean for the ® rst-year cohort, the difference in terms of examination grades meanwas considerably lower at 9.52%. Moreover, whilst the differences between the twosets of data in terms of coursework and overall grade are signi® cant at or above the0.01 level, this observation cannot be extended to the differences in examinationgrades mean. In fact, it is reasonable to conclude that the signi® cance of overallgrade is severely distorted by the superior performance of PASS attendees in QMcoursework grades.

TABLE IV. Weekly attendance by subject area

Week number Summary statistics

Subject area 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total Average SD

QM 10 34 14 20 0 22 36 34 26 196 21.8 12.2IT 4 0 4 10 0 4 1 13 8 44 4.9 4.6MA 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.1 0.3ACC 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 5 0 8 0.9 1.8OB 2 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0.8 1.2

Total 16 36 24 31 0 26 37 52 34 256 28.44 14.63% of total 6 14 9 12 0 10 14 20 13 100 11.11 ±

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TABLE V. Academic implications: a comparison of grades between PASS attendeesand the ® rst-year cohort

Classi® cation/assessment Coursework Exam Total (%)

MeanPASS attendees 42.75 20.83 63.58First-year cohort 34.45 19.02 53.83

% difference in mean scores 24.09 9.52 18.11Signi® cance level (3dps) 0.000 0.221 0.002

Discussion

A total of 256 attendances were recorded during the second semester of the 1997/98academic year. A total of 80 different students were recorded as having attended atleast one PASS session. The average attendance during this period was 28.44. Thisattendance signi® cantly surpasses previous participation rates of the PASS initiative(see Miller & Packham, 1999). The increase, in terms of participation, could bepartly explained through the perceived additional support accrued in the ® rstsemester. It could be that `word of mouth’ in terms of bene® t has had an effect uponthe increase in attendance. Lack of qualitative data, however, reduces this con-clusion to one of conjecture. The dominance of QM attendance offers an alternativeexplanation to this phenomenon. QM at the university has a history of being ahigh-risk subject experiencing a variety of student dif® culties. A number of tentativeconclusions have been drawn in the past as to the underlying reasons for this trend,including a decline in academic standards of students entering the institution and anunwillingness on the part of the cohort to overcome barriers associated with numericsubjects. These claims, however, cannot be substantiated without further qualitativeresearch into the motivation and behaviour of students.

The second semester mirrors that of the ® rst, inasmuch that attendance is femaledominated (see Miller & Packham, 1999). In the second semester, a total of 188females attended a PASS session. Furthermore, in terms of number of students,75% of students were female. This ® nding is particularly signi® cant as the gendersplit of the population of interest is distributed uniformly (University of GlamorganAcademic Registry, 1997). General observations of the PASS sessions highlightedthat whilst females attended in groups, male attendance was often solitary or as partof a female-dominated group. Previous research seems to support this trend, arguingthat these observations could be explained by the ability of females to form andderive mutual support from informal support (Gibbon & Saunders, 1998; Miller &Packham, 1999). Moreover, Miller and Packham (1999) suggest that female domi-nation of PASS sessions during the 1997/98 academic year could be attributed tothe tendency and ability of females to form friendship groups. Limitations ofprevious research, however, reduces the impact of these statements (Miller &Packham, 1999) and it is contended that future research must seek to address theseissues. Evidence also suggests that PASS is dominated by students in the under-21

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age group. This supports previous work by Miller and Packham (1999) and furtherquestions observations made by Gibbon and Saunders (1998) who argued thatmature students largely frequented PASS.

QM dominates attendance, accounting for 196 attendees and a total of 75% of thetotal number of differing students attending a PASS session. This pattern can largelybe explained by the dominance of female students in these sessions. Weeklyattendance to PASS session was also dominated by QM. Research indicates thatQM accounts for 58% of all weekly attendance ® gures. This pattern can partially beexplained due to the fact that QM assignments were distributed evenly over thecourse of the semester. Furthermore, evidence suggests that if weeks 5, 9 and 10 areisolated, QM account for over 84% of total weekly attendance. This can be relatedto instances when more dif® cult elements of statistical analysis were present incoursework material such as probability, sampling and probability distributions.Consequently, it is evident that this research supports earlier ® ndings by Miller andPackham (1999) who argued that PASS attendance is signi® cantly assignmentdriven. It is also interesting to note that in week 8, the week before the Easter break,there were no PASS attendees. This pattern, based on previous observations couldbe attributed to the fact that all assignments for the ® rst half of the semester hadalready been presented. Moreover, the dominance of QM further supports thehypothesis that the degree of academic content is directly associated with PASSattendance levels (Miller & Packham, 1999).

Student feedback provided valuable information as to the perception of studentsand the relevance of PASS to the academic learning process. Students con® rmedthat the sessions were competently run and informative. Students were also comple-mentary in regard to the mentor’ s ability to offer advice and guidance that was easyto understand due to the lack of social barriers and removal of unnecessary academicterminology from course material. Student feedback also indicated an appreciationof being treated as important customers of HEIs and hence seems to con® rm thevision of writers such as Miller and Packham (1999).

The research also maintains that regular PASS attendance has a positive effectupon student performance. In fact, results show that for the two data sets underanalysis, regular PASS attendees to QM sessions out-performed the ® rst-yearcohort. Evidence offers further grounding to the claims that PASS is essentiallyassignment driven (see Miller & Packham, 1999) with the most notable differencesbetween the two sample means (24.09%) being related to performance in course-work-based assessment. It is therefore evident that this research supports thesupposition that initiatives such as PASS and SI have a signi® cant positive effectupon the academic performance of students (Bidgood, 1992; Congos & Schoeps,1993; Miller & Packham, 1999). Superior academic achievement, however, in thecase of PASS, is primarily due to increased performance in assignments. A numberof qualitative observations can be drawn. First, that PASS does not operate duringthe examination period. Secondly, the nature of the QM module provides that ifstudents obtain a pass mark for the module before they enter the examination, thenit is reasonable to conclude that motivation to perform at an optimum can bequestioned. Finally, examinations are individually based whereas PASS utilises

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group dynamics as a key driver to develop cognition. Further research, however, isrequired using various probability-led samples over a wide range of subjects. Thiswill allow further validation and add to the credibility of these tentative observations.

Conclusions

Initiatives such as SI and PASS provide higher education with the opportunity tomeet the challenges laid down by the Great Britain Committee of Enquiry intoHigher Education (1997). The report indicates that institutions embrace contem-porary approaches to student learning in order to enhance graduate employability.This research offers an insight into a successful adaptation of the recommendationsof the Great Britain Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education (1997). ThePASS scheme continues to provide students with the facility to take ownership of thelearning process and utilise peer support to improve cognitive learning and socialdevelopment. In fact PASS in this sense can arguably provide students with keyattributes that are considered crucial to potential employers. This article highlightsthat PASS attendance continues to be dominated by female groups and students inthe under-21 age group. Moreover, the majority of attendees seek assistance insubjects that are academically demanding. The research also supports claims byMiller and Packham (1999) that PASS attendance is primarily assignment driven.This can be illustrated by the relative performance of PASS attendees in QM. It istherefore reasonable to conclude that further research is required to investigate whystudents utilise PASS primarily to improve coursework grades rather than overallacademic performance and add credibility to the supposition that schemes such asPASS enhance overall academic achievement.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor M. Connolly and Alan Jones for theiradvice and guidance in preparing this article.

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Documents

Peer-Assisted Student Support: A new approach to learning