Opinion

Survey of Students

 

A brief survey was administered via the Web to all students enrolled in courses affected by the project in both Fall 2003 and Spring 2004.  In fall 1178 students were enrolled, and 177 students responded (15%), including a reasonable number of students from each course taught; of those, 131 (74%) said that they had interacted with a peer tutor during the semester.  In spring 776 students were enrolled and 142 students responded (18%), of whom 87 (61%) said they had interacted with a peer tutor.  The students who said they had interacted with a peer tutor answered the survey questions as follows.  Percentages are rounded, and preliminary results from the Spring 2004 survey are in brackets.

 

Question: Was a peer instructor usually available at times when they were supposed to be?

Response	Fall 2003 (%)	Spring 2004 (%)
Yes	95	5
No	91	9

 

 

Question: As I tried to learn the material in this course, the peer tutoring

Response	Fall 2003 (%)	Spring 2004 (%)
just confused me	10	12
made no difference	17	17
was helpful	51	39
was very helpful	22	32

 

 

Question: Peer instructors were, in my experience, usually polite and professional.

Response	Fall 2003 (%)	Spring 2004 (%)
Yes	95	5
No	97	3

 

 

Question: Having a peer instructor for this course

Response	Fall 2003 (%)	Spring 2004 (%)
made no difference to my involvement with course material	27	22
might have helped me feel slightly more involved with course material	45	38
definitely helped me feel more involved with course material	28	40

 

Conclusion: On the whole, students felt that peer instructors were helpful both in aiding them to learn the material and in feeling more involved with it, with the former decidedly more pronounced.  The spring semester showed a definite improvement over fall, with many more students feeling that peer instructors had helped them with both aspects.

 

Survey of Faculty

 

Faculty teaching affected courses were asked four questions, the first of which identified the course they taught.  Of fifteen instructors, seven responded, including at least one person from each department involved except Geology.  In the summary below, actual numbers of respondents are given, rather than percentages.

 

Question: On the whole, do you think the peer instructors helped students to learn the course material?

Response	Fall 2003 (N = 6)	Spring 2004 (N = 7)
They were very helpful	2	3
They were somewhat helpful	3	2
They made no difference	1	2
They interfered with student learning	0	0

 

 

Question: On the whole, do you think the peer instructors helped students to be more involved with course material?

Response	Fall 2003 (N = 6)	Spring 2004 (N = 7)
They were very helpful	1	1
They were somewhat helpful	4	3
They made no difference	1	3
They interfered with student involvement with course material	0	0

 

In both semesters all faculty answered in the affirmative to the question: On the whole, did you find peer instructors to be polite and professional?

 

Conclusion: Most faculty responding thought that the PIs were helpful to the students both in their attempt to master course material and in becoming more involved with it  Again the former effect was more pronounced.

 

Survey of Peer Instructors

 

Peer instructors were asked only three questions in Fall 2003, the first of which identified the course or courses with which they had assisted.  Of the 34 peer instructors employed that semester, 18 (53%) responded, including a reasonable number of responses from each involved department.  In Spring 2004, when 26 peer instructors were employed, a fourth question was added to try to measure the effect of peer tutoring on the peer tutors themselves.  Again actual numbers of responses are given below rather than percentages.

 

Question: On the whole, do you feel that your work as a Peer Instructor helped students to learn the course material?

Response	Fall 2003 (N = 18)	Spring 2004 (N = 13)
My work was very helpful	8	5
My work was somewhat helpful	9	8
My work made no difference	1	0
My work interfered with student learning	0	0

 

Question: On the whole, do you feel that your work as a Peer Instructor helped students to feel more involved with course material?

Response	Fall 2003 (N = 18)	Spring 2004 (N = 13)
My work was very helpful	5	2
My work was somewhat helpful	12	10
My work made no difference	1	1
My work interfered with student involvement with course material	0	0

 

Question: In your work as a Peer Instructor, how closely did you work with faculty?

Response	Spring 2004 (N = 13)
I spent a lot of time with faculty	8
I spent some time with faculty, not a lot	4
I spent very little time with faculty	1

 

 Conclusion: PIs agreed with both students and faculty that their work was helpful in both areas of concern, and that they were more effective in helping students to learn than to raise their engagement levels.

 

Comment: When respondents submitted the survey their browsers were directed to a page that allowed them to email the project director with comments.  Very few comments were received, but several peer instructors wrote to the principal investigator to say that while they considered their work valuable to those who were exposed to it, very few students took advantage of the evening review sessions they held.

 

 

Data

 

Some data relevant to the project has been collected and partly analyzed.

 

WDF Rates

 

For Fall 2003 the following were observed.  Historical WDF rates are those reported to me by the Registrar’s office when I wrote the proposal for this project.  Note that GEOL 102 is no longer taught; instead, students go from GEOL 101 into either GEOL 103 or GEOL 106.

 

Course	Number of Students (F03)	Historical WDF Rate (%)	Fall 2003 WDF Rate (%)
ASTR 111	73	40	55
BIOL 121	102	30	30
CHEM 101	218	42	47
GEOL 101	398	32	26
GEOL 103 and 106	79	For GEOL 102: 30	17
ITEC 110	161	None	29
MATH 151	147	41	49

 

Only in Geology did rates decrease; in all other areas they either held steady or increased, in some cases significantly.  It is too soon to tell whether this is a pattern.  In Math 151, for example, the withdrawal rate was strongly affected by one new faculty member’s results.  As that faculty member adjusts to local conditions, the overall withdrawal rate may drop considerably.

 

NSSE Scores

 

The National Survey of Student Engagement was administered in Spring 2003 to approximately 1200 students in affected courses.  A very high response rate was achieved.  No comparisons are yet possible, however, as scores for Spring 2004 will not be reported until late summer or early fall of this year.  Comparative data will be included in next year’s annual report.

 

Quantitative and Scientific Competency Scores

 

The project will not be using these scores for assessment.  No baseline data is available for scientific competency, and the baseline data available for mathematics is of poor quality.  Also, because of changes in the state of Virginia’s schedule, the assessment will not be repeated until 2010.

 

Relationship of Outcomes to Mode of Peer Instruction

 

One item of great interest in the project is whether outcomes were strongly related to the mode of peer instruction.  Some departments used peer instructors in mandatory laboratory sections, and some used them to give help and review sessions, usually in the evenings.  Which model made better use of peer instructors?  Unfortunately, changes made in the middle of the year in both Mathematics and Chemistry and the lack of certain data make it impossible to answer that question with any confidence.  The following table summarizes student questionnaire responses by department for each of the two crucial questions (numbers are percentages for fall and spring combined).

 

Question: As I tried to learn the material in this course, the peer tutoring

	just confused me	made no difference	was helpful	was very helpful
Chemistry	17	26	43	14
Geology	8	15	58	17
ITEC	6	21	35	38
Biology	14	32	46	7
Math	3	18	36	45
Astronomy	5	14	52	29

 

Question: Having a peer instructor for this course

	made no difference	helped slightly	definitely helped
Chemistry	17	26	43
Geology	8	15	58
ITEC	6	21	35
Biology	14	32	46
Math	3	18	36
Astronomy	5	14	52

 

The project will continue to examine this question.

 

Retention

 

At Radford University the only records of individual students’ majors kept are in the Registrar’s office, and that system, surprisingly, has no memory: it knows only each student’s present major.  Thus it has not been possible to track the decisions of individuals.  The project will track the number of majors in all affected departments in each year.  Historical data for the last few years is as follows.

 

Major	Fall 2001 Majors	Fall 2002 Majors	Fall 2003 Majors
Biology	241	243	243
Chemistry	48	61	63
Geology	50	47	38
ITEC*	578	518	427
Physical Science	41	44	42
Math	38	39	37

*ITEC data is for entire College of Information Science and Technology

 

Data for later years will be included in later annual reports.

 

The success rate of majors in courses affected by the project, which are often gateway courses, is also of interest.  We know the historical WDF rates (i.e., the percentage of students either withdrawing or receiving a D or F) in those courses for all students, but we do not presently know them for majors before Fall 2003.  If the Registrar’s record-keeping system permits us to determine them, they will be included in next year’s report.  For Fall 2003 we had the following percentages of majors receiving an A, B, or C in affected courses.

 

Major	Course(s)	Major Success Rate (A, B, or C)
		Fall 2003	Spring 2004
Biology	BIOL 121/122	73
Chemistry	CHEM 101/102	92
Geology	GEOL 101/103/106	91
ITEC	ITEC 110	77
Physical Science	ASTR 111/112	50
Math	MATH 151/152	50