Maura Matesic, reference librarian at the Scott Library, and Dr. Jean Adams, faculty member at the Schulich School of Business, have been working together on a multi-year research project. This project focuses on the use of various technologies and peer support to better understand the information needs and help required to support over 400 first year BBA/iBBA students.

This current peer tutor research project is a continuation of their earlier work  employing Personal Response System (PRS) technology, or “clickers” (allowing instructors to pose questions and receive tabulated responses from students in real-time) to promote the use of the library within the course itself, and “provoke” students to adopt a proactive approach to research as a recursive process.  Findings in that study indicated that students adapt easily to PRS technology and feel democratically empowered to actively participate by responding in a variety of ways (e.g., anonymous “clicker” responses, searching out answers online when asked, raising hands and verbally answering questions, as well participating in online forum after class). In other words, the added interactivity in the classroom created by using PRS technology had a noteworthy positive spillover effect into other participative learning activities.
 
One of the contributions of this earlier study is the insight that these broader findings seem equally applicable to pedagogical settings in which learning objectives are built around and integrated with the principles of information literacy. The current project was launched to explore this further. Of particular interest is the inclusion of peer tutors, and how best to help tutors support first year students in the use and ability to integrate information literacy into meaningful project-based student learning. There is a noticeable gap in the literature relating to peer tutoring/peer learning in both an information literacy and library context and in the business education classroom.

In this study, peer tutors will attend tutorial sessions in the fall term to offer support and personal expertise to student teams by answering questions and sharing learning experiences about a major course assignment that ends in a highly competitive “Best in Class” Business Plan Competition. Tutors take detailed field notes, record student enquiries, document the process of student-tutor engagement, and complete detailed pre-post surveys supplemented by a wrap-up full peer tutor group interview scheduled in the winter term.

Maura and Jean have found their research partnership especially rewarding.

Each brings a complimentary set of attributes and interest to the project enabling them to support each other while encouraging intellectual curiosity beyond the narrows of traditional academic disciplines.

Right: Maura Matesic and Jean Adams