Topic overview: Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS; also referred to as Supplemental Instruction, SI, and Peer Assisted Learning, PAL) is an academic support program in which weekly, voluntary peer-learning sessions, facilitated by senior students, are held alongside challenging undergraduate units. As Dawson, van der Meer, Skalicky, and Cowley (2014) observed in their recent systematic review, a considerable amount of research has focussed on assessing the efficacy of PASS, although virtually none of it has been experimental.

Formatting:

a. 12-point Times New Roman font.

b. 2.5 cm (1 inch) margins.

c. 1.5 line spacing.

d. Indent the first line of each paragraph.

Question:

Provide a brief (absolutely no more than one page) critical overview of relevant research that has informed the development of your experiment. In this overview, please cite at least three pieces of original research and aim to address the following issues with regards to each: (a) What research methods were used? (b) What was found? (c) What (if any) is the key limitation of the research? Ideally, your answer to this question will be an integrated review (in the style that you would find in the introduction of a journal article), rather than three discreet paragraphs, each dedicated to a single study.