The Karen Spiller Fellowship

Independent STUDY Culture

Mrs Samantha Lee Karen Spiller Fellowship Recipient (2020)

The Karen Spiller Fellowship has provided me with the opportunity to pursue an area of research that I believe will make a tangible difference for our students. This project aims to enable students to achieve their senior schooling goals and to set them up for the life of learning they will encounter as they step beyond schooling and into the world of work.

The Karen Spiller FELLOWSHIP

This project will develop and implement a formalised peer tutoring program within the senior school. The development of an independent study culture that sets students up for success has been shown to be conditional on the ongoing interaction between students (Topping et al., 2017) that a peer tutoring program will provide.

The first steps are underway with a literature review of independent study culture, and an action research project that will involve measuring the impact of peer tutoring on the development of successful study strategies. As part of the Academic Preparation and Skills Building (APSB) program already in place, students in Year 11 will be explicitly taught how to participate in effective peer tutoring sessions. The success of this intervention will be measured using a modified version of the Motivation and Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich et al., 1991).

Student led solutions create engagement and are more likely to result in buy in from students (Bloemert et al., 2020). Additionally, we know that when we listen and respond to student voice in authentic ways, we not only develop better programs as a result, but we also provide the opportunity for girls to experience that their voice can have an impact, which is vital for their development. This project holds valuing student voice at its centre and will include ongoing consultation with students about what works and what support is needed for the program to flourish. This, I have no doubt, is what will contribute to its positive contribution to student outcomes.

Bloemert, J., Paran, A., & Jansen, E. (2020). Connecting students and researchers: the secondary school student’s voice in foreign language education research. Cambridge Journal of Education, 50:4, 429-449. doi:10.1080/0305764X.2020.1720603

Pintrich, P. R., Smith, D. A. F., Garcia, T., & McKeachie, W. J. (1991). A manual for the use of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Ann Arbor, Mich: National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning.

Topping, K., Buchs, C., Duran, D., & Van Keer, H. (2017). Effective peer learning: From principles to practical implementation. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315695471