The Study Partner Program

We have been struggling with the problem of
finding ways to assist students in mastering the
volume of information in our accounting and business
law classes. At the same time, we have searched fora
way to incorporate even more time-demand items,
such as writing-across-the-curriculum and essay
testing.

In 1986, as we were contemplating ways of improv-
ing classroom study skills and test performance,
through the college mail came an Innovation Abstracts
“Tandem Testing” (Volume VIII, Number 29). The title
caught our attention; and once we had read the article,
its subject piqued our interest. We began to experi-
ment in two of our classes. The results were encourag-
ing enough to continue with others. Our successes
with this teaching strategy encourage us to suggest it to
instructors in our own and other disciplines.

Note: The Study Partner Program must begin with
the instructor’s decision to give up traditionally-held
views of “individual” homework and test performance.
They must be replaced with a “team” view—where
students share, not only the homework assignments,
but also the test-taking and the resulting grades.

We were reluctant to leave the time-honored secu-
rity of every student doing his own work and earning
his own grade. For too long we had thought of coop-
erative effort ona test as “cheating.” But we moved
past that belief and introduced students to the pro-
gram.

 

The Strategy

We begin class on the first day by introducing the
Study Partner Program, along with the other class
activities. We explain that it will be easier to master the
volume of information required in the course if the
students form small study groups. As support for this
notion, we explain that the learning process will be
more permanent if they add verbal discussion to the
standard learning tools of reading the book, listening to
the lecture, and writing the homework. We explain
how the program should work and what is expected of
cach student in the role of being a good partner.
Students are encouraged to become acquainted with
others sitting nearby, by talking before and after class,
and to form into working groups after the first week,
mecting outside of class to do homework and confer-
ring by telephone.

Up to this point the students listen politely but are
generally unimpressed by the Study Partner Pro-
gram—and rightly so. They have heard all of that

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor

April 7, 1989, Vol. XI, No. 12

©The University of Texas at Austin, 1989
Further duplication is permitted by MEMBER
institutions for their own personnal.

before. Then we lay out the final point: Students will
take their tests with their partners and share the grade.
Student interest picks up right away!

We design every test so that cach two-person team is
a testing partnership. Primarily, we use short-answer
essay-style questions. The partners are free to discuss
the questions and their answers quictly until they reach
agreement; frequently, each partner writes a portion of
each answer. The team submits one test paper with
both names; the test grade is recorded for both mem-
bers.

Several students can work on a study team, but only
two students are allowed on a test-taking team. Some
students prefer to work alone, and we allow solo test-
taking. Whatever the arrangement, the same test is
taken by all.

While we assist the students in forming initial
working groups, they are free to choose their own test-
taking partners and free to change them at any time.
Thus, the hard-working student can “dump” a non-
working partner; the lazy students soon feel the
pressure to pet busy with the assignments.

Program Evaluation

It is difficult to measure the results ina purely
quantitative fashion, but we feel several positive
outcomes. As teachers, it is rewarding to stand in our
classrooms on test days and observe the amount of
additional learning that is occurring in the midst of that OQ
quiet buzz of voices. When we overhear such telling ~
bits of conversation as “... but he said this...” or”...
is what the book said,” we know that the Study Partner
Program is working.

The student drop-out rate has decreased. Students
tell us that the added support provided by the home-
work group makes them feel less lost and helpless.

We can add material, and thus be more comprehen-
sive on tests, without discouraging the test-takers. We
can ask for responses to more difficult concepts.

Interestingly, asking more questions has not created a
higher grade curve. Test anxiety has been reduced.

We have not used the Partner Program in every
class, but it appears to work best in those classes where
the material is especially complicated.

 

 

Larry Williams, Instructor, Business Education
Bob Fullerton, Associate Professor, Mathematics
For further information, contact the authors at Palomar

College, 1140 West Mission Road, San Marcos, CA
92069-1487.

 

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