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heterogeneous group of students is difficult. If
peer tutors can provide <strong>the</strong> same or similar
quality of instruction as classroom teachers
and instructional assistants for particular
tasks, classroom staff may take on more of
supervisory role, while students receive more
time for one-on-one instruction. Freeing up
time for classroom teachers may allow <strong>the</strong>m to
more closely monitor <strong>the</strong> effectiveness of instructional
procedures and to modify instruction
in a timelier manner. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, peer
tutor instruction may be preferable to students
with disabilities because it may be perceived
a more enjoyable and less stigmatizing
than instruction from an adult, especially if it
is paired with opportunities to develop social
relationships. If <strong>the</strong> teacher promotes development
of social relationships and emphasizes
<strong>the</strong> role of peer tutors as same-age learning
partners ra<strong>the</strong>r than “mini teachers”,
students may perceive <strong>the</strong> instruction from
peer tutors favorably. It may be helpful for
future research to address such social validity
issues.
This study contributes to <strong>the</strong> literature in
several ways. First, it contributes to <strong>the</strong> time
delay literature because no study has addressed
teaching chained tasks through <strong>the</strong>
use of peer tutors. Second, it contributes to
<strong>the</strong> peer tutoring literature because we could
find no study that addressed peer tutors teaching
chained tasks with a systematic response
prompting strategy with high school students.
However, <strong>the</strong> study was limited in external
validity because of <strong>the</strong> small number of participants.
It also may be difficult to replicate <strong>the</strong>
study in settings where peer tutors are not
graded for performance (as in this study
where peers were enrolled in a credit generating
class) or in settings where peer tutors
cannot be trained at <strong>the</strong> same time during
large blocks of time. Fur<strong>the</strong>r research should
train peer tutors to use o<strong>the</strong>r systematic instructional
procedures with chained tasks,
train students to perform chained tasks from
o<strong>the</strong>r instructional domains, or to use response
prompting strategies in community
based settings. In future studies it may be wise
to include generalization measures for both
peer tutors and students with respect to using
o<strong>the</strong>r materials in o<strong>the</strong>r settings. Future studies
also may address whe<strong>the</strong>r peer tutors could
reliably code student errors (i.e., duration,
sequence, or topographical) or implement
<strong>the</strong> procedure alone, acting as both data collector
and prompter.
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