Students help their peers to PASS

June 26, 2007

A group of students at the University of New England may be finding exam season a little less stressful this semester thanks to some help from their friends.

Students enrolled in some of the university's toughest undergraduate units benefited from participation in the PASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions) program, run jointly by the university's Academic Skills Office and the Faculty Mentor Program in the Sciences. The program, pioneered in the US in the 1970s, involves senior students helping their peers come to grips with difficult material through weekly study and revision sessions.

Twelve students led PASS sessions for units in statistics, chemistry, accounting and economics. They were chosen on the basis of their own high achievement in the units and an interview. They received training in the PASS methodology and were paid for their time.

PASS coordinators Ingrid Wijeyewardene and Julie Godwin said the PASS leaders were role models for their fellow students and helped their peers by encouraging good study habits and passing on their enthusiasm for the subject. Studies in the US and in Australia had shown the program was effective in reducing student attrition in difficult subjects, they said.

"We're very proud of all our PASS leaders," Ms Wijeyewardene said. "They've done a fine job of helping their peers and have hopefully gotten something out of the experience themselves."

PASS leader Jodie Quodling said she was enjoying economics more since she began assisting students taking ECON201 (Intermediate Microeconomics). Jodie, who is studying for a Bachelor of Agribusiness, said: "It's been a great chance for me to revise, and going over the material again for this unit has helped me with one of the units I'm studying now."

Jodie said the difference between the PASS program and tutoring was that the PASS program encouraged students to support each other in mastering the course material, rather than having a tutor "re-teach" it to them.

"If someone asked a question, I would generally throw it back to the other students to try to answer, rather than answering it for them," Jodie said.

She said an average PASS session for ECON201 attracted between four and nine students. Chemistry leaders reported attendance rates of up to fourteen per session.

The PASS program is based on a technique known as "SI" (Supplemental Instruction) developed by Deanna C. Martin at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1973. Dr Martin was assigned the task of decreasing the attrition rate of minority students in the schools of medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry. After a review in 1981, the SI program was designated by the US Department of Education as an Exemplary Educational Program. It has since spread throughout the world, and is used in at least seven other universities in Australia.

PASS was previously run in the early 90s at UNE in first year economics. 2007 marks the second year the PASS program has been run. Funds are now being sought to run the program in future years.

Posted by Leon Braun at June 26, 2007 10:22 AM