The present essay set out to examine the effect of peer interactions in classroom learning. It also explores the relationship between psychological theories, including social interaction, operant conditioning, and cognitive elaboration theory, and the peer learning in a classroom setting. The findings depict that student's classroom learning is influenced by the kind of response or extent of interaction they get from their peers. The research exhibits that peer interaction is very significant in classroom learning as students are more active when they receive positive feedback and get withdrawn when their peer's feedback is negative. In regards to peer interaction, students' learning in a classroom setting also seems to be influenced by observing others' behavior, attitudes, and outcomes of those behaviors. Further study in this direction can play a crucial role in resolving some of the challenges teachers are facing in the classroom teaching in most schools as most students depict unwillingness to learn. Thus, fostering peer interaction in the classroom enhances and motivates students to learn.
Keywords: Peer Interactions, learning, benefits, peer learning.
The Effect of Peer Interaction on Classroom Learning
Introduction
The present essay aims to demonstrate how students interact with their peers in the classroom and how it affects learning. Thus, the paper will try to prove the hypotheses which states that social interaction in classroom setting has positive influence of students’ learning. In classes where students are exposed to opportunities to interact with their peers, construction of their knowledge is effective (Gómez Lobatón, 2011). By highlighting the cooperative and collaborative nature of scientific work, learners share obligation for learning with peers, discuss various understandings, and shape the class direction (Hurst et al. 2013). Classes characterized by low peer interaction among students are often well-organized, more lecture-focused, and seem to present material clearly, with well-chosen images and minimal text (Hurst et al. 2013). The teacher is often well-versed in the content, but teaches in a manner that do not allow students to interact among themselves (Hurst et al. 2013). In contrast, a more student-focused learning environment offers multiple opportunities for students to share and discuss ideas in small groups and might support the entire class discussion (Gómez Lobatón, 2011). Successful peer interaction involves conversations that seek to give voice to all students and to offer sufficient opportunity and time to consider and listen to the ideas of others (Leslie, 2017).
Literature Review
Definition of Peer Interaction
According to Philip et al. (2013), peer interaction refers to any communicative action done between students, where is there is no or minimal contribution from the instructor. Peer interaction may include two or more members, and when involved in such activities, participants collaborate to meet a common objective (Sato " Ballinger, 2016). Moreover, the term peer may be defined based on the equivalency of one or more aspects of the participants (Sato " Ballinger, 2016).
Types of Peer Interaction
Furthermore, activities which need participants to collaborate can differ in nature and can take place in different processes. The most common of these are cooperative learning, collaborative, peer modeling, and peer tutoring (Philp et al. 2013). In regards, to peer modeling, the high-ranking student offers the knowledge and exhibits learning behaviour which other students might unintentionally or intentionally imitate. Additionally, Philp et al. (2013) explain that collaborative learning involves a strong sense of joint effort and mutuality, where the activity at hand can be completed if learners rely on each other. Sometimes, collaborative learning is utilized interchangeably with collaborative learning; however, Philip et al. (2013) contend that cooperative learning does not usually involve mutuality to the same extent. As for peer-tutoring, it happens when one member assists another participant in attaining the desired goal (Philp et al. 2013). In brief, in collaborative learning the peers are at different development phases, and their relative levels are closer together, which lets them to co-construct cognitive structures and new meaning from the experiences of learning hence forming the basis of Vygotskyan co-construction (Sato " Ballinger, 2016). On the other hand, peer tutoring forms the basis of Piagetian theories of cognitive constructivism, where a more able peer tutors other students who are at an earlier phase of cognitive development thus resulting in cognitive conflict (Sato " Ballinger, 2016).
Benefits of Peer Interaction
Most, if not all, cultures have found it essential to give children's education a formal structure which organizes their educational experiences in a manner that fellow students and designated teachers participate at the same time (Kindermann, 2016). The advantages of teaching students in groups seem to extend beyond economic considerations as interactions of the students with peers enhance their learning more than adult educators' provisions (Leslie, 2017). However, the possible impacts of peer interactions are reciprocal, where some learners seem more interested than others (Leslie, 2017). For instance, some learners seek and value peer feedback or response on every decision they make while, on the other hand, some students avoid peer interaction both out and inside the classroom (Leslie, 2017).
In face to face learning contexts, scholars have consistently found that well-designed collaborative and cooperative learning strategies can lead to significant learning benefits in both university and school contexts (Linton et al. 2014). One of the primary advantages of such approaches is the way in which they help learners in acquiring a timely and regular response from their peers as they articulate and construct their representation of concepts and ideas within a subject (Sato " Ballinger, 2016). While empirical research has shown that face-to-face tutoring as reliably the most effective teaching strategy characterized by positive effects in regards to student achievement, peer teaching and collaborative learning strategies have been often reported to be the most effective alternatives. Therefore, in a learning environment where individual teacher support is often limited, collaborative learning and peer teaching are more feasible. In online learning and distance education context, the significance of the interaction between students has been supported by various seminal scholars and has been the main element of original models (Wentzel " Ramani, 2016). Sato " Ballinger, (2016) propose that social interaction stimulated by computer supported cooperative learning has the potential to encourage critical thinking, shared understanding, and the knowledge of social construction.
Furthermore, a comprehensive accord exists among scholars that peer interaction has a significant influence on student's learning (Sato " Ballinger, 2016). One primary benefit of the observed-peer influence is that learners teach each other both inside and outside the class or depict direct-learning from classmates (Sato " Ballinger, 2016). Moreover, Gómez Lobatón, (2011) contends that learning also occurs through peer interactions which involve making personal value systems transparent in the classroom. When students take part in a conversational interaction where they share and discuss matters that matter to them, learning is more likely to take place since this kind of communication involves learners more meaningfully (Gómez Lobatón, 2011). Gómez Lobatón, (2011) does recognize a significant point that learning depth is not necessarily attained as a natural consequence of activities which have communicative interaction as their concern.
Conversely, oral communication among students is still a primary aspect in classroom activities which aim to promote the involvement of students in learning process through verbal communication and engaging students collaboratively in the meaning co-construction (Gómez Lobatón, 2011). Also, Gómez Lobatón, (2011) suggests that peer interactions in the classroom are crucial considering the idea that peer discussion might enhance learning. When students discuss their ideas and share their interpretations or understandings, better comprehension is likely to follow (Gómez Lobatón, 2011). Peers may learn from one another or from the attempt to articulate their knowledge; however is most significant to content learning since the topic of group discussions itself can be the objective to be learned (Gómez Lobatón, 2011).
Kimbrough et al. (2017) also assert that peer interaction inside the classroom is crucial since it allows students to modify and manipulate ideas to understand one another; hence nurturing knowledge acquisition more naturally even if proficiency levels of the students differ. Students can aid and learn from their peers as group interactions need them to utilize real and greater self-expression to achieve meaning (Kimbrough et al. 2017). The authors also contend that peer interaction can aid develop a favorable environment for the students which can assist them to overcome their inferiority feelings and create a more positive self-identity and image (Kimbrough et al. 2017). Therefore, since peer interaction is linked to both learning and psychological benefits, students might perform more meaningfully in the classroom when interactions are fostered. Additionally, Kimbrough et al. (2017) emphasize the relevance of peer-mediated instruction and small-group interaction in academic classes as these activities help capacitate students in becoming more communicative learners. These activities offer students with different opportunities for reading, written, oral, and audial knowledge acquisition and development (Kimbrough et al. 2017).
Leslie (2017) also explains that in modern-school-systems, peer learning has been demonstrated to be beneficial since it allows the minority students to have an improved integration, while the shared knowledge has elevated the probability of frequent positive communication. Consequently, this shows that the inclusion sense that peer-peer learning develops is not only significant to educational outcomes but also influences a student socially. However, Leslie (2017) stated that peer learning is also linked to some disadvantages and difficulties, where it is found to be ineffective in other students. Perhaps, the problem lies on the fact that instructors in peer learning have low chance for training and onsite assistance to improve the proficiency in utilizing them since most are difficult to employ, especially when it involves many learners with various academic desires (Wentzel " Ramani, 2016). The other current study acknowledged that in most incidences, with and without any special learning needs, staff and students favored traditional strategies of teaching to peer learning (Sevenhuysen et al. 2014).
Analysis and Discussion
The mechanisms underlying the efficacy of social interaction for learning are explained from various approaches to peer learning, namely the cognitive developmental approaches, cognitive elaboration, and social-behavioral approaches (Leslie, 2017). According to the socio-behavioral criteria, peer learning takes place when group participants are working to meet a specific goal and when the achievement of the target by any one group member needs the other participants also achieve the objective (Kimbrough et al. 2017). In the cognitive developmental approach, both the socio-cultural (based on the Vygotsky's work) and socio-cognitive approach (based on the Piaget's work) emphasize the social interaction role in the knowledge construction (Kimbrough et al. 2017). Both strategies of cognition maintain that peer-learning offers necessary and productive opportunities for students to reflect upon perspectives and reaction of other peers (Hurst et al. 2013). This reflection might result in the revision of learner's cognitive systems, and such changes can, later, lead to the new meanings establishment (Hurst et al. 2013).
Cognitive Elaboration Approach
In the present essay, learning is defined as a shared participatory process of active construction of knowledge, and peer interaction is considered from an approach of cognitive elaboration (Hurst et al. 2013). The cognitive theory highlights the cognitive processes carried out by students cooperating and put efforts to examine the settings under which peer communication benefits classroom learning (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Concerning the approach of cognitive elaboration, interaction with others results in active information processing by the students, which can later modify the cognitive structures of the students (Hurst et al. 2013). Elaboration is considered as the comprehensive explanations which take place when a student give examples, uses various representations, describes a concept, or supplies specific argumentation (O'Donnell et al. 2011). The elaboration process entails an explicit comparison of different conceptions or perspectives, knowledge co-construction, the shared meaning development, and collaborative resolution of contradicting viewpoints (O'Donnell et al. 2011). When students in a learning environment try to solve a problem or discuss a topic together, they verbalize their thoughts, and consequently, verbalization facilitates processes of elaborative cognition (O'Donnell et al. 2011). In the cognitive elaboration approach, the role of verbalization is crucial, and chief inference is that when students in a small group are requested for help, the attainment is linked to the feedback they offer, where explained responses are associated with positive achievement, while the provision of merely the correct answer (with no elaboration) is not (O'Donnell et al. 2011). In addition, O'Donnell et al. (2011) clarified that it is possible when giving explained answers as students reorganize and rehearse their understanding using prior knowledge or information. Furthermore, one of the most efficient means of elaboration is teaching the material to someone else (Schunk, 2012). In this method, the student takes roles as listener and re-caller, where they read part of a text, and then the re-caller reviews the information while the listener corrects any errors, fills in any omitted material, and aids help to think of means that both student can remember the principal ideas (O'Donnell et al. 2011).
In brief, cognitive elaboration approaches to peer interaction rely on theory of information processing (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Consequently, peer interaction is utilized to increase the individual performance of primary activities of information processing such as rehearsal, retrieval, encoding, schema activation, and metacognition (O'Donnell et al. 2011). The approach of information processing proposes that carrying out these actions in the presence of peer will lead to more active participation with the classrooms activities at hand (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Peer's presence can aid students to stay on task, and the response helps learners know when they are supposed to examine their content understanding they are making efforts to explain (Hurst et al. 2013).
Social Learning Theory: Cognitive Approach
Lev Vygotsky's social learning theory clarifies that people learn via their communication and interactions with others (Schunk, 2012). Lev Vygotsky proposed that learning occurs via the interactions students have with teachers, peers, and other professionals in the learning environment (O'Donnell et al. 2011). In his explanation, the student cannot meet the primary goals without the help of others (Schunk, 2012). The processes of guiding the student to advanced cognitive functioning phases depend on interactive human relationships (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Mentors such as more proficient peers can increase learner's competence through the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which is a gap between what the student can attain with assistance and what a learner can do alone (Schunk, 2012). As a result, instructors can create a positive learning environment which optimizes the ability of the students to interact with each other via feedback, collaboration, and discussion (Wentzel " Ramani, 2016). In other words, Vygotsky recognizes that learning always takes place and it is impossible to separate from a social context (Schunk, 2012). As a result, instructional approaches which support skilled knowledge distribution where learners collaboratively cooperate to carry out research, discuss their results, and produce or perform a final project, helps to create a cooperative community of students (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Within Vygotsky's social context, construction of knowledge occurs when there are peer-peer and expert-student cooperation on real-world tasks or problems which build on each person's experience and skills shaped by the culture of each student (O'Donnell et al. 2011).
Although constructionism social aspects are most frequently linked to theories of Lev Vygotsky, Piaget did recognize the impact of social interaction on knowledge construction and cognitive development (Schunk, 2012). The earlier works of Piaget, acknowledge the significance of interactions where he clarified that peer relations are essential to a child's construction of moral and social feelings, values, and intellectual and social competence (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Piaget clearly emphasized social interaction as a determining and influencing factor of knowledge construction and cognitive development, recognizing the importance of moral judgement and values as part of this process (Schunk, 2012). About learning, from Piaget's viewpoint, humans learn in social environments, and through observing others, they develop perspectives, skills, and knowledge (O'Donnell et al. 2011). The aspect of the interaction between people as affecting cognitive knowledge formation and cognitive operations, terms knowledge as socially influenced (Wentzel " Ramani, 2016). Cooperation and communication between individuals then as culturally and socially affected experience results in social cognition or knowledge formation (Schunk, 2012). Therefore, for Piaget, co-operation is a significant feature of developmentally oriented education not merely because it is a culturally valued virtue, but due to its psychodynamic developmental significance (Diedrich, 2010).
Regardless of the clear distinction between Piagetian and Vygotskyan peer learning approaches it has been found that both need peer communication (O'Donnell et al. 2011). Although peer interaction is preferred over student-teacher relationship, instructors are often incapable of planning efficiently for peer-peer interactions (Diedrich, 2010). Peer interactions can be a motivating factor for students, in comparison to adult-peer communication where power seems to be shared and distributed more horizontally (Wentzel " Ramani, 2016).
Other theories which explain the relationship between peer interaction and the learning is Albert Bandura's theory which presents human interactions included in the process of learning (Bandura, 2016). Vicarious or observation learning is associated with watching then imitating others or "modeling" (Bandura, 2016). If a learner interacts with peers who value learning by participating in classroom activities, then the student will too be interested in taking part in the learning process and may put extra work to learn (Bandura, 2016). Peers characterized by positive behaviors and attitudes toward education will teach other students to set goals that involve opportunities to learn (Bandura, 2016). If peer students do not have positive attitudes and behavior toward process of learning, then the learners watching them will not value learning in their lives; instead, they will start to prioritize other objectives (Bandura, 2016).
Operant Conditioning: Reinforcement
Behaviorism also offers one way to describe the link between students' learning and peer interactions (Diedrich, 2010). In basic behaviorist theories, in the academic arena, the relationship between individuals influences the learning process only as much as individuals support each other or not (Diedrich, 2010). For instance, if the peer group which a student is involved encourages education and learning, then the student in the group will likely value learning, since the individual learner is rewarded or reinforced, for behavior which shows knowledge is appreciated (Diedrich, 2010). On the hand, learners in peer groups which do not perceive the value of education, the reinforcement and motivation are absent needed to foster personal learning. Such peer groups seemingly reinforce and facilitate other values (Diedrich, 2010).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the evidence presented in this essay supports the assertion that peer interaction is significant for classroom learning. Some of the highlighted benefits of peer interactions in this essay include peer-peer teaching, help to develop favorable learning environment, encourages knowledge acquisition, capacitate students to be communicative learners, and allows minority groups to integrate better. Thus, it is apparent that peer interactions play a crucial role in promoting understanding of the students or at least the ability of the learner to explain the interpretations. The essay also depicts that various approaches, including social interaction, cognitive elaboration, and operant functioning, are in accord that the attitudes and values of the peers in a classroom setting are significant factors in student's learning process. Students who interact with peers who are scholarly driven and goals-oriented are more likely to internalize, exhibit, and value these features themselves and vice versa. Therefore, the importance of this research was to prepare instructors to assimilate peer interaction in their classrooms. When peer interactions are integrated into classroom dynamics, classes turn out to be active places; thus, the results in this research will help teachers to recognize the benefits of social interaction and know the way to develop such type of learning environment. In other words, educators should develop a non-threatening and safe learning environment where students are contented to participate.
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