“I Must Be Good If I Can Teach!” — Peer Tutoring with Aggressive and Withdrawn Children

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that both aggressive and withdrawn children would benefit from participating in brief daily learning sessions with peers having similar behavioral problems. In particular the study looked for gains in self-concept and in the children's behavioral difficulties. Sixty children from a Buffalo public school were randomly placed into three groups: tutors, tutees, and control subjects. After random assignments were made, I met with the tutors for two training sessions in which they learned how to correct and reinforce their students in an easygoing, nonhostile manner. Tutors were given freedom to manipulate content materials of each session and were allowed to meet with their tutees as often as they wanted. After the five weeks of peer tutoring, almost all children who actively participated in the program showed higher gains than the control subjects. They had higher self-concepts and made greater behavioral improvements. In addition they demonstrated a renewed interest in school and in the learning process. A significant correlation was found between gain scores and the number of times of participation in the peer-tutoring sessions. Teachers and administrators were in favor of continuing the project with some modification. They felt that the sessions should be more structured and more under a teacher's control.