Postgraduate peer support programme: enhancing community

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 26: Learning for an Unknown Future

July, 2003, 692 pages
Published by
Helen Mathews and Rod McKay
ISBN
0 90 8557 55 8
Abstract 

This paper reports on research conducted in relation to a Postgraduate peer support programme for Applied Psychology (Business) at Griffith University. The Peer Support Programme, funded by a Griffith University grant, was designed on principles of collaboration, adult learning and peer-assisted learning in a student community in order to counter the isolation that has been described as being endemic to the postgraduate experience. The purpose of the research was to assess the effectiveness of the peer support mechanism in terms of the degree to which it successfully embodied the principles on which it was based: peer-assisted learning in a student community, collaboration, and adult learning. We found that, while these principles did indeed appear to have been applied effectively, we needed to think more broadly about the ‘student community’ and to apply more vigorously the notions of peer-assisted learning and adult learning.

Key words: Postgraduate supervision; peer support; practice-based research