Abstract:

Following our earlier study on the effectiveness of remedial lessons in mathematics and physics for the Polytechnic Foundation Programme (PFP) students at Singapore Polytechnic (Dewanto et. al. 2022), this paper now studies the efficacy of peer tutoring to improve the academic performance of PFP students who were identified as at-risk of failing mathematics and physics. The study evaluated the students’ academic performance by analyzing their percentile rank in mid-semester tests and end-semester exam scores in both subjects. A comparative analysis was conducted between the academic performance of students who regularly attended the peer tutoring sessions, against those who seldom or never attended the session. We found that peer tutoring is as effective as staff-led remedial lessons in helping students to improve their academic performance, provided they are willing to regularly attend the sessions.

Additionally, a survey was also conducted to gather tutors’ self-perceived effect of peer tutoring on their academic, self-confidence, and skillset gains. Most tutors concurred that being peer tutors helped develop their communication, social, and empathy skills. It also helped them be more aware of their own learning process. However, they did not think that being peer tutors would improve their own academic performance.

References:
[1] Dewanto, A., Lim, M., Phang. P. (2022). A Study on The Effectiveness of Remedial Lessons in Mathematics and Physics for Polytechnic Foundation Programme Students, ICERI2022 Proceedings, pp. 1310-1315.

Keywords:

Peer tutoring, polytechnic education, foundational program.