Peer influence was higher when compared to teachers. Students excelled academically when taught by their peers rather than their instructors.

‘Teachers were exceptionally good at getting cold facts across, while peers seemed to understand and gain access into an identification process.’

"These findings suggest that what instructors were good at was getting across cold facts, while the peers seemed to be tapping into an identification process. In other words, as a student, I can identify with my peers and imagine myself using the course material in the same way they do. This gives the material meaning and a sense of purpose that goes beyond memorization. When I hear a peer's story, it connects to the story I am telling myself about who I want to be in the future," said Cary Roseth, co-author, associate professor of educational psychology. 




The study was conducted in an online college course, the first to investigate the effects of peer and instructor rationales on student outcomes over an entire semester, let alone in an online setting.
For the experiment, students in an MSU introductory-level educational psychology course, which is required of all teacher education students, were randomly assigned to receive either the peer rationale, the instructor rationale or no rationale for why the course was important and beneficial to their potential careers as teachers.
The peer and instructor rationales were scripted and identical. When it came to final grades, students who received the peer rationale scored an average of 92 percent, significantly higher than the 86 percent scored by students who received the rationale from the instructor.
Interestingly, students who received no rationale averaged 90 percent for a final grade, which is still higher than those who received the instructor rationale.
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