Effects of two instructional approaches and peer tutoring on gifted and nongifted sixth graders' analogy performance

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of two instructional approaches, combined with peer tutoring, on gifted and nongifted sixth graders' analogy performance and on a far transfer reading comprehension task. Subjects were 131 students in six intact language arts classes in Central Texas school district. Students were randomly assigned to direct instruction or inquiry approaches for training in analogical reasoning or to control. For the assessment of direct effects of training, students were pretested, immediately posttested, and delayed posttested using the word comprehension subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, Forms A and B, presented in counterbalanced order. Additionally, a far transfer reading comprehension task was developed and administered to all students. The week following training, 14 peer tutors were randomly selected from control on the basis of sex and ability. Data were quantitatively analyzed by analysis of covariance procedures. Results indicated that: (1) training was significantly better than control at improving performance on the posttests; (2) direct instruction was better than inquiry at improving performance on analogy and transfer task; and, (3) analogy performance of tutored students was comparable to that of students trained by the investigators. Qualitative analysis of the audiotape transcriptions of the peer tutoring sessions demonstrated that: (1) tutors modeled the instructional approach by which they were trained; (2) direct instruction tutors were better prepared for the tutoring sessions than were the inquiry tutors; and, (3) there were numerous instances of making abstract concepts more concrete.