Work in Progress: PEERSIST - A Formation of Engineers Framework for Understanding Self-Efficacy and Persistence among Transfer Students

The PEERSIST (Peer-led, Student Instructed STudy group) model promotes academic achievement through peer dialogue, in which disciplinary knowledge is socially co-constructed and refined over successive sessions. The study presents and utilizes an observation protocol to evaluate the implementation of peer learning in a mezzanine-level thermodynamics course at a large southwestern public university. The observation protocol was used to measure and compare the student interactions in two types of recitation sections, one of which used Peer-Led Study Groups (PLSGs) and the other of which followed a traditional TA-led format, to help demonstrate that student interactions were the main source of learning in the PLSG sections. The results showed that student interactions occurred at a significantly higher rate in the PLSG sections than in the TA-led sections. The study also analyzed peer interactions by incoming course preparedness in the PLSG sections and found a non-significant relationship between each group's mean pre-course grade point average (GPA) and number of peer interactions.