Postsecondary Peer Learning Groups Annotated Bibliography (updated 5/17/2023)

Major programs in the bibliography: (a) Accelerated Learning Groups (ALGs), (b) Embedded Peer Educator (EPE), (c) Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), (d) Learning Assistant (LA), (e) Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), (f) Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), (g) Structured Learning Assistance (SLA), (h) Supplemental Instruction-PASS (SI-PASS), and (i) Video-based Supplemental Instruction (VSI). Some programs are known by other names. For that reason, some publications were not included in these bibliographies.

bibliography Versions for Downloading

  1. [Click on this link to download the bibliography as a PDF document].

  2. [Click on this link to download the bibliography as a Word document.] Using Microsoft Word software makes it easy to edit the bibliography as you like and use the search engine to find keywords of your own choice.

  3. [Click on this link to download the EndNote bibliography database file.] This file is for the EndNote bibliographic software. There are other free citation management systems. If you download the software file, you can use the “keywords” coded into each individual entry. This allows sophisticated searches using multiple keywords.: [Word document version]  [PDF format version]

Separate Bibliographies by each Program

The following bibliographies come from the large one described above and are separated by each of the nine national and international peer learning programs.

topic Area Bibliographies

The following bibliographies are based on one of the keywords used to label the individual citations from any of the nine peer programs. It is best to download the Endnote data file and use the keyword guide to create your own custom bibliographies. Feel free to contact me and I can conduct a customized search and provide the results to you as a Word document, David Arendale, arendale@umn.edu The number that precedes the topic name indicates the number of publications.

Academic Content annotated Bibliographies

This is a sample of publications by broad academic content areas across all nine peer learning programs. Contact me if you want a customized database search, and I can provide a report. David Arendale, arendale@umn.edu

Updating the Bibliography

Errors and omissions are my responsibility. Send me overlooked citations for the next version of the bibliography. David Arendale, arendale@umn.edu

Background on the Bibliography

Since 1995, I have maintained an annotated bibliography of publications about peer learning programs at the postsecondary/tertiary level. I share it in PDF, Word, and EndNote database. Please observe the license under which it is made available for your use. The unabridged version of the bibliography is now almost 800 pages composed of nearly 2,000 annotated references.

This annotated bibliography does not attempt to include all literature concerning peer collaborative learning. Instead, it is focused intentionally on a subset of the educational practice that shares a common focus with increasing student persistence toward graduation and several other criteria listed in the paragraph below.

The nine student peer learning programs included in this bibliography meet the following characteristics: (a) the program must have been implemented at the postsecondary/tertiary level; (b) the program has a clear set of systematic procedures for its implementation that could be replicated by another institution; (c) program evaluation studies have been conducted and are available for review; (d) the program intentionally embeds learning strategy practice along with review of the academic content material; (e) the program outcomes include increased content knowledge, higher final course grades, higher pass rates, and higher college persistence rates; and (f) the program has been replicated at another institution with similar positive student outcomes. From a review of the professional literature, nine programs emerged: (a) Accelerated Learning Groups (ALGs), (b) Embedded Peer Educator (EPE), (c) Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), (d) Learning Assistant (LA), (e) Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), (f) Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), (g) Structured Learning Assistance (SLA), (h) Supplemental Instruction-PASS (SI-PASS), and (i) Video-based Supplemental Instruction (VSI). 

Postsecondary Peer Cooperative Learning Programs: Annotated Bibliography by David R. Arendale is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://z.umn.edu/peerbib