Relative Efficacy of Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Peer Tutoring for Students At-Risk for Academic Failure

This study directly compared the academic gains of reciprocal peer tutoring, nonreciprocal peer tutoring, and a waiting-list control group. Participants included 59 elementary students from second-, third-, and fourth-grade classrooms who performed below average on curriculum-based measurement (CBM) math probes. Students involved in peer tutoring were trained to tutor basic math facts using a constant time delay procedure. Results indicated that the two types of peer tutoring produced comparable gains in basic math facts. Furthermore, both types of peer tutoring produced substantially larger academic gains than the waiting-list control group, demonstrating at-risk students can successfully tutor each other.