PEER TUTORING AND ABILITY GROUPING 1 Meaghan McDougald Instructor: Jordan Shurr FOCI 295-003 December 13th, 2020 Collaborative Project Individual Summary; Peer Tutoring and Ability Grouping Emily McDool. (2020) Ability grouping and children’s non-cognitive outcomes, Applied Economics, 52 (28), 3035-3054. Ability grouping has long been the subject of critical debate since adoption in primary and secondary schools. The practice is characterized by its systematic separation of students based on their perceived academic ability into different learning environments (2020). Students with exceptionalities in general education classrooms are most often placed into “low ability” academic groups, with consideration for individual cases. Initial research on the cognitive outcomes of ability grouping correlated an increase in academic progress for students placed in high achieving cohorts. Alternatively, students’ placements into low ability cohorts correlated with a regression in academic and social progress as well, regardless of environmental setting. There is some evidence to indicate that an environmental separation negatively impacts academic self-concepts, selfconfidence and motivation (McDool, 2020). This study further explored the extent to which ability grouping and environmental separation in mathematics instruction impacts non-cognitive outcomes including motivation, conscientiousness and extraversion. The author indicates that students in low ability groups lack the positive effects of interacting with their high achieving peers. Primary interaction with other low achieving students decreased motivation, resulting in an increase of negative behaviours seen in the cohort. Exceptional students who were exposed to disruptive behaviour from their peers were found to exhibit worse behaviour than usual, and regress in their academic performance. As a result of a collective decrease in motivation, students in low achieving groups were exposed to more hostility and anger from peers (McDool, 2020). These results may have been instigated by the damaging consequences of the separation and grouping process. The correlation between ability grouping with decreases in motivation and perceived ability potential create a self-fulfilling prophecy that may contribute to the result. One positive outcome that teachers could use this instructional accommodation for is the ability to target the interests and instructional needs of students in low ability cohorts. Teachers can employ this accommodation to increase engagement and decrease incidences of misbehaviour. Ultimately, most teachers have been discouraged from using this instructional accommodation because of the findings that male identified students in particular placed in low ability groups suffered overwhelming negative non-cognitive outcomes, namely emotion regulation and peer interaction skills, and poor academic performance in mathematics. Students’ rates of behaviour incidences correlate to their placements in low ability groups, and their subsequent decrease in selfconfidence and motivation (McDool, 2020). PEER TUTORING AND ABILITY GROUPING 2 Okilwa, Nathern S. A., and Liz Shelby. (2010). The Effects of Peer Tutoring on Academic Performance of Students With Disabilities in Grades 6 Through 12: A Synthesis of the Literature. Remedial and Special Education, 31 (6), 450–463. This literature synthesis analyzes the effects of class wide peer tutoring, and peer assisted learning strategies on the academic and non-cognitive outcomes of students with exceptionalities between Grades 6-12. Peer tutoring is defined as strategies that “employ peers as one-on-one teachers to provide individualized instruction”, and clarification of concepts (Okilwa et al., 2010). Research has correlated peer tutoring in primary grades with positive outcomes including improved academics in reading, comprehension, math, desirable behaviours including remaining on-task, increased motivation, and improved peer social interactions. Authors of recent studies have emphasized the increased importance of this instructional accommodation in the intermediate to secondary grades over primary grades. This transition period in developmental stages places a stronger importance on positive peer interaction, which peer tutoring can accomplish. Peer tutoring also provides exceptional students the additional one-on-one or small group instruction that is often needed to progress academically and socially depending on their needs, and also creates a more inclusive learning environment for students who struggle to attend to teaching in a whole class setting (Okilwa et al., 2010). Peer tutoring accommodations are particularly effective for intermediate to secondary students because the transition in instructional formatting from general skills acquisition to content knowledge acquisition and independent tasks, with less student-teacher interactions throughout the school day, leaves the needs of exceptional learners unaccounted for in the general classroom. Peer tutoring allows exceptional students in general and special education settings the chance to receive the individual attention and immediate feedback to a degree that most teachers cannot provide in a typical class block (Okilwa et al., 2010). Teachers are heavily encouraged to implement this instructional accommodation in place of ability grouping due to the overwhelmingly benefits in academic and noncognitive outcomes for exceptional learners. Exceptional students have been shown to effectively teach one another from areas of personal strength, and learn new skills from one another in both general and special education settings, regardless of disability type. Implementation of peer tutoring has also been effective regardless of curricular content area. This instructional accommodation is an excellent alternative to ability grouping because exceptional learners can be made responsible for their own learning and the learning of others to a degree, while also gaining the social benefits of exposure to consistent peer interaction (Okilwa et al., 2010).
