Design-based research principles for successful peer tutoring on social media

ABSTRACT

Social media platforms such as WhatsApp are increasingly used in formal education settings. However, there is little research to guide educators on how to set up effective peer tutoring groups on social media platforms, particularly between tutors and tutees who rarely meet face-to-face. In the context of a WhatsApp mathematics tutoring project, we present evidence-based principles to guide the establishment and operation of peer tutoring groups on a social media platform. The development of the principles followed a design-based research framework, based on theories about peer learning, participation barriers to social media use in a low socio-economic setting, and input from participants, who were high school students and university students in Cape Town, South Africa. The refined principles provide guidance for others in similar settings who aim to use tutoring groups on a social media platform to achieve education goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Student success
• peer learning
• constructivism
• WhatsApp
• m-learning
• blended learning
• mathematics

Acknowledgements

Elda Lyster provided inspirational mentoring and feedback on earlier drafts written with Tandie Nkosi. Thanks go to Tefelo Mathibane and Tandie Nkosi for their work as research assistants and participants on this project, to the Centre for Research in Engineering Education and to my PhD supervisors Tracy Craig and Brandon Collier-Reed for excellent writing support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Anita Campbell http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4782-7323

Additional information

Funding

This paper was developed with the support of funding from the DHET NCTDG Project: The improvement of teaching and learning in South African universities through researching and evaluating TDG projects in the First Year Experience (FYE) initiatives, Tutorials, Mentoring and Writing Retreats. The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa and the Research Office at the University of Cape Town towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed, and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF.