Peer Tutoring Strategy: A Quantitative Analysis of Pre-Service Teachers’ Academic Achievement in Mathematics

This research focused on investigating the impact of employing peer tutoring as an instructional approach on the academic attainment of pre-service teachers in mathematics within selected Colleges of Education in Ghana. The investigation was guided by two research inquiries and corresponding hypotheses. The research design employed was quasi-experimental, involving a sample of 370 third-year pre-service teachers drawn from three Colleges of Education situated in two regions of Ghana. To gather data for analysis, a Mathematics Students Achievement Test (MSAT) was crafted and validated by three experts, demonstrating a reliability index of 0.81 as determined by Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The collected data underwent analysis utilizing adjusted means and standard deviations to address the research queries. Meanwhile, the null hypothesis was assessed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at a significance level of 0.05. The outcomes of the study unveiled that participant exposed to the peer tutoring instructional approach achieved higher scores and exhibited notably superior performance compared to those who experienced the traditional talk and chalk teaching method. Moreover, the assessment of interaction effects indicated that gender did not significantly interact with the teaching strategy in relation to students' average performance. In conclusion, this study underscores the efficacy of employing peer tutoring as an instructional strategy for teaching mathematics. Consequently, it is recommended that mathematics educators embrace this approach as a valuable tool within their instructional repertoire. Given that peer tutoring demonstrated greater effectiveness and contributed to heightened mathematics achievement compared to conventional teaching methods, it should be integrated as one of the preferred strategies for mathematics instruction in classrooms.