Date of Award

5-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Alexander Kuskis

Second Advisor

Dr. Alexa Dare

Third Advisor

Dr. Heather Crandall

Abstract

This study investigated the efficacy of written and oral peer feedback used as an instructional strategy to support student learning in speech outline development. One hundred seven students from a California Community College participated in a mixed-methods evaluative quasi-experimental study conducted in a two-fold process with both quantitative and qualitative measures. Existing literature on peer-centered learning has various gaps. These include four areas of uncertainty: implementation interventions, trust, self-perceived benefits, and contexts. Overall perceived learning benefits and four specific instructor intervention variables were measured in this study: (1) creation of a safe space for collaboration, (2) student training on the characteristics of effective feedback, (3) student observations of instructor modeling of effective feedback, and (4) student training to engage in a carefully designed peer feedback active learning process. Aggregate results indicated that peer-centered learning facilitated by instructor interventions had a significant positive effect on cognitive learning, group interaction, innovation, outline development and speech performance. Future investigation could unravel a counterintuitive finding that mean academic performance varied up to fourteen percent from one sample group to the next given one instructor and the same pedagogical treatment. Further research may also address the transferability of this model to other contexts, and the self-perceived benefits compared to actual performance for English as a Second Language (ESL) students despite their preference for instructor feedback.

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