The Effect of Peer Tutoring on Achievement of Students in Discrete Structures

Mathematics is a difficult subject, however, the researcher believes that Mathematics teaching can be made easy depending upon several factors like the teaching strategy in Mathematics instruction. This study investigated the effect of peer tutoring strategy on the students’ achievement in Discrete Structures of second year college students at the Pangasinan State University Bayambang Campus, Philippines. More specifically, it attempted to determine and compare the achievements of the students exposed to peer tutoring and conventional teaching. The experimental method of research was used in the study particularly the posttest control group design. Two intact classes were randomly assigned to experimental and control group and were subjected to six weeks treatment period. Valid and reliable researcher-made achievement test was used as the data gathering instrument. The mean, standard deviation, skewness and analysis of covariance were computed to determine and compare the achievement of the two groups. The result of the study revealed that the students exposed to peer tutoring significantly achieved better than those exposed to conventional teaching. Based on the finding, it is concluded that the achievement of the students is enhanced when exposed to peer tutoring strategy. It is recommended that peer tutoring strategy should be used by mathematics teachers in order to improve the performance of their students in the subject. Furthermore, further studies should be conducted to find out the effect of peer tutoring in other subject areas.

Keywords:peer tutoring, peer learning, peer mentoring, cooperative learning