Peer Instructions

Dr. Jonathan Tullis is leading the research activities for this project.

Description

Peer instruction is a pedagogy where an instructor presents a short lecture on the central point, asks students to individually answer a conceptual question related to the idea just presented, has students discuss their answers with neighboring students, and finally asks students to individually answer the question again. As compared to traditional lectures, peer instruction shows medium-sized gains on concept acquisition, reductions in student attrition, and improvements in student engagement and attitudes towards courses across universities and domains. In this project, we are examining the process of peer instruction. More specifically, we are examining the performance consequences of peer instruction across much younger grades and in different settings, the metacognitive repercussions of peer instruction, the process of peer discussion of answers, and how grade level and subject domain affect the instructor’s use of this pedagogical technique.