Effects of Contingent and Non-Continguent Tutor-Received Reinforcement on Peer Tutoring

The Problem: To determine the effect of peer tutoring by ninth grade math students; under the conditions of no reinforcement, tutor-received reinforcement that is contingent upon tutee homework improvement, and tutor received non-contingent reinforcement; on low achieving seventh grade math students' performance and attitude change. Procedure: Ss served in either the nontutored control condition, the tutor received non-contingent reinforcement condition (NCR), or the tutor-received contingent reinforcement condition (CR). During phase 1 no specific reinforcement was received by the control Ss, tutors, or tutees. During phase 2 each tutor in the CR condition received reinforcement each week that his tutee scored above his baseline homework performance which had been determined at the end of phase 1. The NCR tutors received reinformcement in the same frequency as the CR tutors but regardless of tutee homework performance. Changes in performance were measured by the California Arithmetic Test, an attitude survey, grades, and homework. Conclusions: Homework performance significantly differed under the three conditions with the CR tutees best, followed by the NCR tutees, and finally the nontutored Ss. The tutored Ss maintained significantly more positive statements on the attitude survey than the control Ss. No significant differences between treatment groups were found for math achievement or grades. Recommentaions: Further study under conditons on tutor-received reinforcement, tutee-received reinforcement, and combined tutor and tutee-received reinforcement should be conducted to find the relative merits of each condition.

Grantor dc:publisher

Drake University

Year dc:date.issued

1973

Author dc:creator

• Boal, Steven

• Tutors and tutoring
• Reinforcement (Psychology)

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Dc Identifier Other

1973 .B63

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:escholarshare.drake.edu:2092/1011