Gateway Science Workshop Program

Approaches to Learning in Peer-Led Undergraduate STEM Workshops

This project -- an interview-based qualitative study -- examines how students taking part in small-group, peer-led learning programs understand learning within the context of that experience.

Micari, M., & Light, G. (2008). Reliance to independence: Approaches to learning in peer-led undergraduate STEM workshops. International Journal of Science Education, 1–29. (iFirst article; DOI 10.1080/09500690802162911.) (Link to publisher website)

Approaches to Learning in Peer-Led Undergraduate STEM Workshops

This study examines an effort to modify a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning context and the approaches to learning taken by students experiencing this environment. Using a qualitative, phenomenographic approach, we interviewed 45 students in Northwestern University's Gateway Science Workshop program, a STEM peer-led workshop program.

Our analysis revealed 3 contrasting ways of experiencing learning within the peer-led small group programs:

• Simply making it through the course
• Engaging more meaningfully with the material
• Gaining better control over one's own learning

Each of these ways was characterized by 2 key dimensions:

• Learning intention
• Learning constraints

Learning intention describes a move toward an intended learning state and away from a less desired learning state; learning constraints describes both the barriers to achieving one's intentions and the factors within the peer-led small-group learning program which moderate those barriers.