Student learning assistants: the journey from learning advice to creating community

Abstract

This study reports on a generic peer-assistance programme conducted by Learning and Academic Skills Advisors and Student Learning Assistants (SLAs) at an Australian university. The research explores SLAs’ perspective of their role and its development. Drawing on data collected from focus groups and a questionnaire it was found that SLAs, drawing on their experience and a dialogic process, empowered students to become decision-makers and more autonomous and successful as academic learners. This study contributes to the previous body of research on peer advising by showing that the sense of community created through interactive and psychosocial aspects of the relationship between an assistant and assisted is inseparable from the development of academic skills.

Keywords:

• Student-learning assistant
• peer-learning community
• dialogism
• autonomous learning