Peer instruction: An evaluation of its theory, application, and contribution

Many qualitative and quantitative studies performed on peer instruction in many different disciplines (physics, science, engineering, social, etc) were reviewed and analyzed in the present study. The brief results of reviewed studies was given in Appendix. Some of the studies focused on the effectiveness of peer instruction on high school, college, and university students' performance, conceptual learning, problem solving, critical thinking, perception, attitude, motivation, confidence, and belief, etc. in comparison with traditional teaching methods. Some of others examined the effectiveness of peer instruction on gender factor. Some studies investigated the effects the interactive engagement methods (just in time teaching, think pair share, hybrid approaches, etc.) with peer instruction on students' learning gain. Several studies reported the influence of low and higher technological tools on peer instruction. The other studies analyzed the impact of instructors' teaching experience and students' academic background on peer instruction. When the results of the indicated studies were generally evaluated, it could be said that the cognitive and affective skills of the students instructed with peer instruction regardless of teaching experience of the instructors, considering academic background and gender of the students, using low and higher technological tools were higher than those of the students instructed with traditional teaching methods.

Recommendation

Some suggestions regarding reviewed studies' results could be presented as follows: more researches are needed a) to confirm the impact of high-stake and low-stake grading on peer discussion, b) to examine the effectiveness of some characteristics (demographics, gender, race, background knowledge, etc.) of students, and some properties (teaching experience, etc.) of instructors on peer instruction with more statistical analysis, c) to confirm the effectiveness of interactive engagement methods based on peer instruction on the conceptual understanding and problem solving of the high school, college and university students in many different disciplines, d) to examine the effects of initial and second voting on students' performance, e) to investigate the impact of peer instruction on the psychomotor skills besides cognitive and affective skills of the students.