Evaluating PAL

Original URL: http://www.peerlearning.ac.uk/html/evaluating_pal.html
(Copy taken 15 Feb 2003. Format roughly edited to make more printable.)

Evaluating Peer Assisted Learning

Evaluation of a PAL programme will most likely need to take place for any number of the following:

to ascertain the impact of PAL on retention and achievement of first year students

to review the workings of a programme in order to develop it in future years

to follow up the usefulness of PAL for Student Leaders

for research applicable to PAL as a whole

Retention and Achievement - Numerical Analysis

It is important to be able to demonstrate that PAL can increase the grades of students and lower their chaces of dropping out of a course. The most simplistic analysis will be to compare those students who have regularly attended SI against those who have not, and apply a statistical procedure to see if the former students have fared better than the latter. Such a procedure would not take into account what has been termed `self-selection bias´- those students attending PAL may differ from those who do not. Examples of possible differences include:

prior academic achievement

motivation

suitedness to a course

personality

learning style

Of these, prior academic achievement has been most frequently accounted for in published studies. Motivation has to an extent also been accounted for in the literature, though as a variable has tended to be interpreted differently by different researchers.

As most studies are from the US, prior academic achievement has usually been entered into statistical analysis as a student´s SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) score. It is worth noting that in most studies, PAL (or Supplemental Instruction as it is called in the US) has been shown to have an effect over and above a student´s previous academic achievement. In the UK, an appropriate controlling variable would be a student´s A-Level points.

An example of how such data might be collected and subsequently analysed is shown below:

Such an illustration is somewhat extreme, but in a great number of studies, the effect of PAL, whilst smaller than in the above example, has been shown to be statistically significant.

Retention and Achievement - Qualitative Analysis

Self-report from first year students provides another method of ascertaining how useful PAL has been to students. Appraisal from first years may help develop a PAL programme and to give it credibility. Examples of open-ended questions that might be asked first years:

how helpful was PAL in increasing your assignment marks?

how helpful was PAL in increasing your exam marks?

what was the impact of PAL on your remaining on the course?

how helpful was PAL in improving your study skills?

Links to Evaluation Tools

Some examples of forms and questionnaires can be obtained by following the links below:

Student Leader Session Assessment Form

Session Assessment Form page 1 to view these files you will need
Session Assessment Form page 2 Adobe Acrobat Reader (link)

These are forms for Student Leaders to complete after a PAL session. Page 1 aims to elicit general qualitative information about the session. Page 2 asks for more qualitative information and also attempts to elicit data on the extent to which various learning strategies were present in the session.

These forms are produced by the PAL Project at Bournemouth University and may be reproduced and adapted.

Methods to Determine the Impact of SI Programes on Colleges and Universities

Follow this link to view the US paper:

Congos, D. & Schoeps, N (1999). Methods to Determine the Impact of SI Programs on Colleges and Universities.

This paper details at length methods to assess PAL (SI).

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Any comments or questions contact scapstic@bournemouth.ac.uk