Does peer mediated instruction result in better learning outcomes?

Abstract

In higher education more and more peer-mediated education activities are being implemented. Having to present a lecture for fellow students is an assignment frequently used in higher education and is thought to fosters learning by the students presenting the lecture. So, it’s important to know if students learn less from lectures presented by peers versus their students, but this knowledge is currently lacking. Peer mediated instruction has shown to have benefits in education, but findings in studies in this field of research seem mixed. Present study wants to contribute to knowledge on the effectiveness of peer mediated instruction. In a within-subject experimental design, 27 graduate students watched both a peer-mediated video as well as an expert-mediated video. Recall and comprehension were assessed in a posttest directly after watching each video. No significant effect was found of the peer versus expert condition. A significant main effect was found for version, F (1, 25) = 6.92, p = 0.01, partial η2 = 0.22. This means that in version 1 comprehension scores for the peer instruction were higher than the comprehension scores for the expert instruction. In version 2, the scores for expert instruction were higher than of the peer instruction. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed, speculating that other factors than only model characteristics, for example the unique way of explaining by a peer, might influence the effectivity of peer mediated instruction.