Interdependent Cross-Age Peer Tutoring in Mathematics

Abstract

Peer tutoring is a form of structured peer learning technique. This study develops and tests a new form of peer tutoring technique, ‘Interdependent Cross-Age Peer Tutoring’ (ICAT). The method is informed by the ‘what works literature’ within peer tutoring and brings together crucial elements which have been shown to provide high effect sizes. Specifically, ICAT consists of an autonomous/informative structure, with students setting their goals in a cross age peer tutoring mathematics context. ICAT was implemented for six weeks in three different schools across England, with teachers concentrating on teaching their planed topics. School A (n=95) Year 8 students tutored Year 6, school B (n=65) Year 9 tutored Year 7, and school C (n=44) Year 10 students tutored year 8. Schools A and B adopt a pre/post-test quasi-experimental design and school C adopts a single group pre/post-test design. Research made instrument were applied to measure tutees performance gains. Classroom and paired observation were conducted for each school and the ICAT lesson materials for the six weeks were analysed to establish intervention fidelity. School A showed the highest ICAT implementation and effect size, 0.92, significant at (p<.001). However the findings should be interpreted with caution due to a weak research design.