In a new paper, recently published in Contemporary Educational Psychology, we examine the behaviors and emotional experiences of peer tutors and their students during STEM peer tutoring sessions, and we investigate whether there are any gender differences in these processes.
Peer tutoring programs are increasingly popular on college campuses, and some have speculated that they might help reduce gender gaps in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. However, despite their popularity, very little attention has been paid to the behavioral and psychological processes that unfold in peer tutoring sessions themselves. In a new paper, recently published in Contemporary Educational Psychology, we examine the behaviors and emotional experiences of peer tutors and their students during STEM peer tutoring sessions, and we investigate whether there are any gender differences in these processes.
We find that men and women (both tutors and students) show similar levels of behavioral engagement—they ask and answer the same number of questions, talk for the same length of time, and appear equally engaged to outside coders. However, women tutors and women students report feeling more anxious and less confident than men feel after the sessions; they also appear less confident to outside coders. In addition, women tutors evaluate their own performance as tutors more poorly than men tutors do.
What are the implications of these findings? One, in the long run, if women consistently experience negative emotions in peer tutoring interactions they might experience burnout and eventually disengage from STEM fields. Second, experiencing negative emotions during peer tutoring could hinder the learning process and influence women’s performance later. Therefore, an important next step for fostering women’s continued participation and performance in STEM will be understanding how to improve women’s emotional experiences during peer tutoring interactions.
Thank you to the tutors and students who participated in this work and the many research assistants who worked on this project! And big congratulations to PhD Student Affiliate Oana Dumitru for publishing her first first-author paper!