Book Reviews
Book Review by Helen Cowie
Peer Assisted Learning
Topping, K. and Ehly, S. (1998) (eds.)
Mahwah,
N.J:
ISBN:
0-8058-2502-9
Keith Topping and Stewart Ehly have produced a comprehensive over view of educational research and practice in the domain of peer-assisted learning (PAL). The authors emphasise their reliance on evidence, scientifically based, to justify the claim which they make for the effectiveness of PAL. They also give a useful breakdown of the range of forms which PAL can take, including peer tutoring, peer modelling, peer education, mentoring, peer monitoring, peer assessment and peer counselling. The typology of PAL methods encompasses 13 different organisational dimensions, each of which is explored in some depth in the book. For example we learn about the range of characteristics typifying helpers and helped, characteristics of the role whether fixed PAL or reciprocal PAL, the advantages and disadvantages along a continuum from single helpers, through dyads to groups, the scope of PAL across place (within or between institutions) and time (informal class time or informally outside the timetable, from brief to lengthy contact).
The authors aim to enable the reader to place PAL interventions in an over-arching theoretical concept. Personally, I would have welcomed more on the Vygotskian framework for learning through the zone of proximal development (ZPD) but this probably reflects my own bias. The overview would have benefited from some acknowledgment of research into peer relationships in order to do full justice to the strong affective component of PAL. The authors could also have made useful connections with the literature on children’s rights and their potential for education in citizenship.
Overall I recommend the book for researchers and practitioners in this increasingly popular field.
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