An Investigation of the Effects of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring on Achievement,
Self-efficacy, and Test Anxiety

Marlynn M. Griffin and Bryan W. Griffin
Georgia Southern University

(Published in Contemporary Educational Psychology, 1998)

Marlynn M. Griffin, Bryan W. Griffin, Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Research.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 8-12, 1996, New York, New York.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marlynn M. Griffin, Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Research, P.O. Box 8144, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, 30460-8144, (912)489-5572. Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to mgriffin@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu.

Abstract

Reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) is a cooperative learning strategy which capitalizes on the benefit students receive from preparing to tutor one another. In these experiments we investigated the effects of RPT on the academic achievement, academic self-efficacy, and test anxiety of undergraduate students. Undergraduate education majors enrolled in either human growth and development or educational psychology participated in the study. Students developed a series of test questions, used these questions to quiz each other prior to unit examinations, and provided corrective feedback to the questions. Statistically significant findings were inconsistent across the experiments. In short, RPT appears to have, at best, inconsistent effects on achievement, test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy.

An Investigation of the Effects of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring on
Achievement, Self-efficacy, and Test Anxiety

Research on cooperative learning has indicated that peer tutoring, a type of cooperative learning, is effective at increasing student achievement at various educational levels (Bargh & Schul, 1980; Greenwood, Carta, & Hall, 1988; Jenkins & Jenkins, 1985; Sherman, 1991; Slavin, 1991). This achievement gain typically resulted for both students in the peer tutoring partnership—the tutor and the tutee. Contrary to what one might expect, however, several studies have found that the tutor benefited more than the tutee from this pairing possibly because of the studying and preparation for the tutoring partnership required of the tutor (Allen & Feldman, 1973; Annis, 1983; Bargh & Schul, 1980; Benware & Deci, 1984).

Reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT), a peer tutoring process developed by Fantuzzo and his colleagues (Pigott, Fantuzzo, & Clement, 1986; Wolfe, Fantuzzo, & Wolfe, 1986), enables each student to play the role of tutor and tutee. As a result of this reciprocal role, RPT allows each student to reap the benefits derived from preparing to teach another student. Students engaged in RPT provide instruction, evaluation, and reinforcement to one another, thereby creating mutual assistance and social support among RPT participants (Fantuzzo, King, & Heller, 1992; Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989; Pigott et al., 1986).

In previous studies examining the use of RPT in higher education, students were paired with the same partner throughout the school term. Each member of the dyad generated a series of test questions, administered the questions to his or her partner, and provided tutelage as necessary prior to unit examinations. This tutoring process took place outside of class time and students brought the completed RPT tests to the instructor of the course on the day of the course examination. Thus, RPT items were not viewed by the instructor until after students completed the RPT task. Experiments with RPT have provided evidence for positive effects on achievement, decreases in stress and anxiety, and increases in course satisfaction for undergraduate psychology students (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989; Riggio et al., 1991).

Most studies of RPT were consistent in their findings concerning academic performance: students who studied with RPT demonstrated a better understanding of the material tested. These experiments, however, were limited to either populations of elementary/middle school children (Fantuzzo et al., 1992; Fantuzzo, Polite, & Grayson, 1990; Pigott et al., 1986; Pigott, Fantuzzo, Heggie, & Clement, 1984; Wolfe, Fantuzzo, & Wolter, 1984), or undergraduate psychology students (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991). Contrary to most of the reported research, Griffin and Griffin (1997) found that RPT techniques did not improve academic achievement in graduate-level educational research courses. Despite this finding, graduate students reported that they believed the RPT procedure was beneficial to their understanding of course concepts.

If RPT does lead to increases in achievement of targeted course concepts, it follows that improvement in student self-efficacy should also occur. One source of self-efficacy is outcome of performance (Bandura, 1986). According to Bandura, if students have experienced success in a domain, they are likely to have higher self-efficacy in that domain. The RPT procedure gives students an opportunity to practice test taking skills and receive feedback immediately prior to completing a unit examination. This practice activity is predicted to lead to higher feelings of self-efficacy for the unit examination. Furthermore, research has shown that strategy instruction can influence self-efficacy. That is, self-efficacy is promoted when one understands and applies a strategy that can enhance achievement and leads to a greater sense of control over learning outcomes (Licht & Kistner, 1986; Schunk, 1989). RPT is a cooperative learning strategy which may lead to enhanced achievement outcomes. Cooperative learning experiences, as compared with individualistic experiences, can promote a greater sense of personal efficacy (Johnson, Johnson, Pierson, & Lyons, 1985; Johnson, Johnson, & Scott, 1978).

Another aspect of motivation involves students’ affective or emotional reactions to a task (Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990). In a school setting one of the most notable affective reactions centers around test anxiety (Wigfield & Eccles, 1989). Pintrich and DeGroot (1990) found that test anxiety was not related to the use of cognitive strategies but was negatively related to self-efficacy and examination and quiz performance. This outcome corresponds with findings of Benjamin, McKeachie, and Lin (1987) who proposed that in some students test anxiety during examinations causes students concern about their capabilities, and this can actually interfere with performance. RPT has been shown to lead to increases in performance and, thus, we are predicting it will lead to an increase in self-efficacy. A subsequent prediction is that increased self-efficacy will lead to lower levels of test anxiety when RPT is utilized.

In the following three studies we attempted to extend the generalizability of RPT beyond elementary school students and undergraduate psychology students by investigating the effects of RPT on undergraduate education students’ achievement. Additionally, we investigatd the impact of the RPT procedure on students’ academic self-efficacy and test anxiety. In the first experiment, we made slight modifications to the RPT procedures used by Fantuzzo and his associates. Specifically, the modifications included: (a) students were provided with chapter objectives on which to base the RPT questions they constructed (previous studies give no indication that this was done), (b) the questions were examined by the instructor of the course before they were used in the tutoring process (again, there is no indication that test questions were reviewed prior to the RPT process in previous studies), and (c) students tutored each other in class, immediately prior to completing their exams (as opposed to previous studies, in which students completed the RPT procedure outside of class, on their own time).

The findings of our first experiment did not support previous findings of RPT; that is, we did not find that students who used RPT had increased achievement scores over students who did not engage in RPT. Since these findings were contrary to those of previous RPT research, we replicated our first experiment using the same modified RPT method. The achievement outcomes of this second study were compatible with the outcomes of the first experiment we conducted. In a third experiment, we randomly assigned students to one of three groups: (a) a group which completed RPT with our revised procedure, (b) a group which completed RPT following Fantuzzo and associates’ procedure, as closely as we could replicate it based on the available literature, and (c) a control group which wrote brief essays rather than engaging in RPT. Again, the findings of the third experiment indicated no differences in achievement among the three groups, a finding contradictory to those of previously published RPT studies. The remainder of this paper will more fully describe the RPT procedure and discuss the implications of our findings.

Experiment 1

Participants. Forty-seven undergraduate education majors enrolled in two sections of a human growth and development course participated in Experiment 1. Most of these students were sophomore-level education majors or were waiting to be admitted to the college of education, while the remaining 15% were pre- recreational, occupational, or physical therapy majors. The course was offered at a medium-sized, regional university located in the Southeast, and all sections were taught by the first author of this study. About 70% of the participants were women, 81% were White, and most students were from rural areas.

Three experiments have examined the effects of RPT on undergraduate academic achievement (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991). The average RPT effect size observed in these three studies was 0.99. The statistical power in our experiment to detect such a large effect, should one occur, exceeded .95 (Cohen, 1988; Lipsey, 1990).

Instruments. Unit tests served as post measures of the effects of RPT on achievement. Unit tests consisted of multiple choice questions and 2-3 short essay questions. Since the RPT procedure specifies that students should write multiple choice items, only the multiple choice portion of the unit examinations were utilized to determine posttest scores. Chapter objectives were distributed to students and content for most of the objectives was discussed during class sessions. Each item included on the unit tests corresponded to a course objective, and students were instructed to use the objectives as guidelines for writing their RPT items. These measures should ensure the content validity of the posttest measure.

Test anxiety and academic self-efficacy were measured by the Self-efficacy and Test Anxiety Scale (STAS), which provides a measure of situation-specific, or state test anxiety (Griffin, 1994). The instrument was administered prior to each of the examinations during the examination class period. The alpha reliability coefficients for the two constructs, self-efficacy and test anxiety, were above .90 for each of the exams in all classes. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the STAS items correlated and loaded on one of two factors as expected, and that these two factors accounted for 70% of the observed variance of item responses.

Design and Procedures. A switch-back design (Petersen, 1985) was utilized in this study. Two classes were exposed to both the treatment and control conditions, but in varying sequences. Students in class A completed the RPT procedure twice, for exams one and three, and students in class B participated in RPT once, on the second examination.

RPT procedures were implemented as follows. Students in the treatment group were instructed to write 5 test items from each of two chapters for the unit examinations (each unit test assessed between 3 and 5 chapters). Thus, students in the treatment condition wrote and studied 10 items per test. These items were submitted for instructor review approximately one week prior to the unit examination. Written explanations of the correct responses were included on a separate page to ensure that students knew and could explain to their partners the correct response to the RPT items. The items were examined to ensure that each had only one correct response, was content-valid, and was unambiguous. Any items not meeting these criteria were returned to the students for revision and resubmission.

Students were randomly paired for the initial RPT session, and remained with these partners for subsequent RPT sessions. Students completed the RPT activities during the class periods in which the exams were administered. They were allowed to work on RPT for up to one hour, though all students typically finished within 30 minutes. Students exchanged RPT items with their partners, responded to the items, and then returned the completed tests to the writers for feedback. For each incorrect response or any other response for which the tutee required clarification, the tutors provided explanations and assisted the tutees in understanding the content assessed by the item. Students completed the STAS immediately prior to each unit examination, and immediately after the RPT session for those participating in RPT.

Course procedures were identical for the two classes participating in the study with the exception of the timing of reciprocal peer tutoring. Both sections of the course met on the same days, with a two hour break separating them. The content and delivery of the material were kept consistent across the sections to reduce the potential of experimenter effects.

Three outcomes of interest were measured: achievement, self-efficacy, and test anxiety. The posttest achievement, state test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy scores were analyzed using a 2 x 2 (class and treatment) repeated measures analysis of variance (Maxwell & Delaney, 1990). All analyses were conducted at the alpha = .05 level. Results are reported in Table 1.

For posttest achievement scores, there was a statistically significant interaction between the treatment and class. The interaction was ordinal, indicating the mean difference in achievement was greater for the treatment condition, but this difference varied across the three testing periods. On average, the mean difference between treatment and control was about 1.21 percentage points which reflects an effect size of 0.13. Note that this effect size was in the correct, or predicted, direction, but it was considerably smaller than the average effect of 0.99 found in previous experiments.

Results of the statistical analysis of test anxiety showed that when students participated in RPT, they demonstrated a statistically significant lower level of anxiety than did the control students. The RPT effect on test anxiety, -0.18, was larger, in absolute value, than that observed for posttest achievement.

There was no statistically significant evidence that RPT impacted students’ academic self-efficacy. However, on average, students showed higher levels of self-efficacy when exposed to RPT (d = 0.05).

Since the results of the impact of RPT on achievement for Experiment 1 did not support fully the findings of most previous studies of RPT, that is, that RPT improves test performance, we conducted a second experiment. Methodologically, the second experiment was very similar to the first, with the following differences: students enrolled in an educational psychology class were the participants, and we added a fourth unit examination thus increasing the number of RPT treatments and the number of observations.

Experiment 2

Participants. Fifty undergraduate education majors enrolled in two sections of Educational Psychology participated in the study. This course was offered at the same institution, by the same instructor, as the course in Experiment 1. Students were either of junior or senior class standing, and most were from rural areas. About 80% of the students were women, and 84% were White. With this number of participants, the statistical power for Experiment 2 was approximately the same as for Experiment 1.

Instruments. Unit tests served as post-measures of the RPT effect on achievement. Each unit test assessed two to three text chapters and consisted primarily of application-type multiple choice questions, along with two or three short essay items. As with Experiment 1, only the performance on the multiple choice portion was used in the analysis of achievement effects. Again, content validity was established by the matching of test items to stated course objectives.

Test anxiety and self-efficacy were measured by the Self-efficacy and Test Anxiety Scale used in Experiment 1.

Design and Procedures. The design and procedures of Experiment 2 were identical to those in Experiment 1 with the following exception. All students in Experiment 2 completed the RPT procedure on two occasions, class A for exams 1 and 3, class B for exams 2 and 4. Altering RPT between classes in this manner reflects a double reversal design (Cochran & Cox, 1957), i.e., the class not participating in the RPT procedure served as the control group for each implementation of the strategy.

As with Experiment 1, both sections of the educational psychology class were taught by the first author on the same days of the week, with a two hour break separating the meeting times.

Posttest achievement, state test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy scores for Experiment 2 were analyzed using a 2 x 2 (class and treatment) repeated measures ANOVA. All analyses were conducted at the .05 significance level. Statistical information is provided in Table 2.

There were no statistically significant RPT effects for either posttest performance or test anxiety. However, unlike Experiment 1, the largest effect observed (d = 0.31), which was statistically significant, was for academic self-efficacy. Like Experiment 1, all three effect sizes were in the hypothesized direction, albeit the effects were all much smaller than those observed in other experiments with RPT.

Analyses of data gathered in these two experiments indicate that the effects of RPT on achievement, test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy were all in the hypothesized direction. That is, RPT, on average, had positive effects on achievement (average d = 0.10) and self-efficacy (average d = 0.18), and reduced levels of test anxiety (average d = -0.15). These effects are much smaller than those observed by Fantuzzo and associates (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989; Riggio et al., 1991). Thus, while our experiments replicated previous studies of RPT in terms of the direction of the observed effect, there remains the question of why RPT did not show greater effects upon our dependent measures.

Perhaps the most plausible explanation for the differences in observed effects between these two experiments and those reported by Fantuzzo and associates (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991) lies in the modifications made to the RPT procedures employed in this study and in the procedures employed in earlier investigations of a collegiate population. In previous investigations, students wrote items and administered tests outside of class without any intervention by the course instructor. There is no indication whether students in previous studies were provided with objectives upon which to base their RPT questions, as were the students in our two experiments. That is, the quality and validity of the items were not checked prior to the RPT procedure, and were not reported in previous studies. Further, no discussion of time spent in the tutoring process was offered in previous studies. In this study we tried to control for quality of items and time engaged in tutoring and thus modified earlier RPT procedures by (a) requiring students to submit items for review prior to administering them to their RPT partners; (b) requesting that students revise any items which had blatant problems, such as multiple correct answers, lack of content validity, or ambiguous wording; and (c) setting aside time in class immediately prior to the unit examination in which students could administer their RPT tests. We allowed students time in class to administer their tests to each other to ensure that students did engage in the RPT procedure.

Our intention in implementing these changes was, of course, to increase control over the experimental manipulation. It is possible, however, that by implementing these modifications we undermined some of the benefits of RPT identified in earlier studies (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991). In previous studies, student-developed RPT items were not examined prior to the tutoring session; recall that we examined these items to correct any blatantly poor or invalid items. It is possible that students in previous studies all wrote acceptable test items, or perhaps they did write some poor items but these poor items created important and useful dialog between partners and this resulted in improved understanding of concepts.

Additionally, our attempt to ensure the completion of RPT by requiring students to participate in the test-taking and tutoring components of RPT in class may have actually resulted in less time spent on RPT. If students completed RPT procedures outside of class, they may have had more opportunity to probe their partner’s understanding of course content and identify weaknesses in each others’ understanding. Our modification, however, did not allow for much, if any, extra study time between taking the RPT tests and the unit exams. Within 10-15 minutes of completing RPT, students began the corresponding unit examination.

In an effort to ascertain what might account for the varied findings of our RPT studies and those conducted previously, we initiated a third RPT experiment. In this experiment, students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (a) in-class RPT (explained above, as the modification to Fantuzzo and associates’ [Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991]); (b) out-of-class RPT (Fantuzzo and associates’ method [Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991]); (c) a control group, which wrote brief essays on topics related to course content.

Experiment 3

Participants. Sixty-seven undergraduate education majors in two sections of Human Growth and Development participated in the study. This course was offered at the same institution and by the same instructor as the courses in Experiments 1 & 2. Most of these students were sophomore-level education majors, while the remaining 10% were students from other majors. About 80% of the students were women, and 81% were White.

Instruments. A comprehensive final exam served as the post-measure of the RPT effect on achievement. The comprehensive final exam was utilized as a post-measure, rather than the unit test comparison as in Experiments 1 & 2, to make the design of Experiment 3 more consistent with the design found in Fantuzzo’s studies (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, et al., 1989; Riggio et al., 1991). To establish content validity, each item included on the final exam corresponded to a course objective, and students were instructed to use the objectives as guidelines for writing their RPT items prior to each unit exam.

Test anxiety and self-efficacy were measured by the Self-efficacy and Test Anxiety Scale (STAS) used in Experiments 1 & 2 (Griffin, 1994). These measures were administered on the first day of class, and again at the time the students took the final exam, immediately prior to beginning the final (and after completion of RPT for the two RPT groups).

Design and Procedures. A pretest-posttest design with random assignment of students to treatments was utilized in this study. On the first day of class, all students completed information cards, pretests of course content, and the STAS. Information cards were shuffled and used to randomly assign students to treatment groups and to randomly assign partners within each treatment. Students retained the same partner throughout the quarter.

Students were assigned to one of three treatments: (a) in-class RPT (RPT A), (b) out-of-class RPT (RPT B), and (c) essay writing. Students in the in-class RPT followed the same basic procedures as those followed by students participating in Experiments 1 & 2: students were instructed to write 10 test items for each of four unit examinations, which were submitted for instructor review and feedback prior to the unit examination. Students also submitted explanations of the responses to their questions, and any unclear items were returned to students for revision before the exam date. Students completed the RPT activities, taking each other’s tests and tutoring, during class, immediately before completing the unit examination.

Students in the RPT B group wrote 10 test items and response explanations for each of four unit examinations, but these were not submitted for instructor review and feedback. Partners completed the RPT activities prior to coming to class to take each unit examination.

The essay writing group wrote brief, one- to two-page essays on one of five topics before each unit examination. Materials from all three groups were collected by the instructor immediately prior to completing each unit examination. Grammatical and mechanical corrections were made, but otherwise students were simply given credit for completing the assignments.

On the date of the final examination, all students completed a comprehensive posttest. Additional RPT items were not written for this test, following Fantuzzo’s procedures. After all students completed the final examination, they were debriefed about the experiment and given an opportunity to withdraw their data if they chose to do so. All students agreed to remain in the study.

Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to examine the RPT effect on posttest achievement, state test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy for Experiment 3. All analyses were conducted at the .05 significance level (see Table 3). There were no statistically significant RPT effects for any of the dependent measures.

Discussion

Though the findings of these three experiments provide mixed evidence for the efficacy of RPT, it is clear that none of them provided robust support for the tutoring technique. What is unclear is why these three experiments failed to support previously published findings of RPT (Fantuzzo, Dimeff, & Fox, 1989; Fantuzzo, Riggio, Connelly, & Dimeff, 1989; Riggio et al., 1991).

The most obvious explanation was counter-indicated by the results of Experiment 3. That is, that the change in RPT procedures implemented in Experiments 1 & 2 in an effort to increase experimental control actually concealed the effect of RPT. Experiment 3 compared original RPT with the modified version and a control task, and no significant differences were found among the three groups.

Perhaps RPT is more appropriate for use in combination with some instructional strategies than with others. While we do not know which teaching strategies were implemented by Fantuzzo and his associates, it is possible that they varied enough from those utilized by the first author of this paper to contribute to the observed differences in RPT outcomes.

Future studies of RPT should continue to examine the efficacy of the procedure with students in psychology, education, and other disciplines. The modifications we introduced to RPT should also be investigated further to determine fully, if possible, which factor contributed most to the reduced RPT effect sizes observed in our experiments. In addition, given the findings of our experiments, future investigations of reciprocal peer tutoring should further examine the impact of this strategy on self-efficacy and test anxiety since these are areas upon which the effect of RPT is unclear.

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Table 1

aMean squared errors.

bPosttest performance scores in percent correct.

* p < .05.

Table 2

aMean squared errors.

bPosttest performance scores in percent correct.

*p < .05.

Table 3

ANCOVAs and Summary Statistics for Experiment 3

Note. Values enclosed in parentheses represent mean square errors. M are the unadjusted posttest means, Madj. are the covariate adjusted posttest means, and SD is the standard deviation. Posttest performance scores are in percent correct. RPT In-class represents the scores of students who quizzed each other in class, immediately prior to completing their exams, and RPT Out-of-class refers to the students who quizzed each other out of class, prior to completing their exams.

* p < .05.

Copyright © 2000, Bryan W. Griffin

Last revised on 08 December, 2000 02:52 AM