Online Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Approach in Facebook: Measuring Students' Critical Thinking

Critical thinking skills are one of essential employability skills for graduates when entering the workforce. The lack of critical thinking skills among Malaysian graduates is a concern as these skills are important for success in the 21st century. Therefore, this paper aims to study the effects of online reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) through Facebook discussion on students’ critical thinking. In this study, the online RPT approach in Facebook was used to nurture students to think critically. In RPT, the tutor role is switched between participants in each task, giving equal opportunities to all learners to benefit from the tutor and tutee role. This approach was integrated into their learning for 4 weeks to increase students' critical thinking. During the learning process, they need to involve in 4 critical thinking tasks based on Bloom's taxonomy. 29 undergraduate students from the school of education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia completed the validated instrument, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal test (inference, assumption, deduction, interpretation, evaluation arguments) before and after the treatment. The findings show that it is significantly different in making inference (Z=-3.85, p=.000

Enhancing Interest Among Senior Secondary Students in Expository Essay Writing in South East Nigeria: The Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Approach

The study focused on investigating the impact reciprocal peer tutoring teaching approach has in promoting interest among senior secondary school students in writing expository essay in Igbo –Etiti Local Government Area, South-East, Nigeria. The effect of gender in promoting interest in expository essay writing among senior secondary school students was also investigated. Two research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a quasi- experimental design. 75 (32 males and 43 females) in two intact classes consisted of the sample for the study. Expository Essay Writing Interest Inventory (EEWII) which was face validated by four consultants was used as an instrument to data for the study. Mean, standard deviation and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to analyze the data collected. Results obtained revealed that reciprocal peer tutoring teaching approach was effective in promoting interest in expository essay among the students. The result also indicated that the variation in the mean interest scores of male and female students in expository essay was not significant. The interaction effect of gender and the teaching approach on mean interest scores of senior secondary school students in expository essay writing was also not significant. Hence, the researchers recommended that secondary school teachers should adopt this teaching approach for expository essay writing teaching in secondary schools.