Evaluation of the Efficacy of Peer Assisted Learning in a Scale Development Course

Introduction: Based on previous researched found that Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) are well established with positive effects on examination scores of undergraduate students.    In this regard, School of Nursing, Chulalongkorn University  in Bangkok, Thailand, offering  only graduate curriculums  proceed to create new educational environments which can be delivered at a low cost but improve more  level of knowledge for graduate nursing  students.  

Purposes: to compare knowledge scores of experimental group between before and after  treating with PAL method, and to compare knowledge scores after experiment between students used PAL method and students used traditional learning method.

 

Methods: A quasi-experimental research with pre-test/post-test both control and experimental groups.  The subjects were 45 graduate nursing students in the first semester of the 2014 academic year registered to study a scale development course. The simple random sampling was used to assign students from class section 1 and 2 into experimental or control groups.  Thirty students from class section 1 were assigned to be an experimental group  using PAL method and fifteen students from class section 2 were assigned to be a control group using traditional teaching method.  Both sections were taught by the same faculty member, same number of lecture hours with same contents. After class, students of control group used self-study method for lesson review but students of experiment group used PAL method once weekly for at least 1 hour during 10-week-long academic semester.

Study instruments included knowledge test on a scale development contents (examination scores) at a confidence level of .90, teaching plans with PAL and traditional teaching methods, and a quality survey of PAL evaluation.  Data were analyzed by using mean, standard deviation and t-test.

Results: the results showed as follows:

1. The post-test scores (26.17 ± 3.61) of the experimental students was significantly higher than the pre-test scores (15.77± 3.06) at confidence level of <.001.  

2. The post-test scores (26.17 ± 3.61) of the experimental students was significantly higher than the post-test scores of control group (20.93± 3.99) at confidence level of <.001.  

3.The results of the quality survey of the training course also indicated satisfaction of PAL method but students required to select their peer by themselves rather than assigned by a teacher.

Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that peer assisted learning is effective in the enhancement of the students’ confidence and learning. Peer assisted learning also creates good learning environment.