'Peer learning' as pedagogic discourse for research education

Research education has been dominated in recent years by policy-driven preoccupations with doctoral completions, funding and contributions to the economy. This has led universities to focus on enhanced institutional support for research degrees, with an emphasis on supervision, in particular the training of supervisors, and provision of a richer environment for students. This article uses examples from interviews with research students to show how the provision of a rich environment is not in itself sufficient. A new discourse is needed so that students are able to take up opportunities that are available. The article questions the current emphasis and argues that a new focus on pedagogy is explicitly needed. It challenges the dominant focus on supervision and 'provisionism' and suggests that a more appropriate pedagogic discourse should draw on the familiar notion of 'peer' from the world of research. It argues that peer learning, appropriately theorized and situated within a notion of communities of research practice, might be a productive frame through which to view research education. © 2005 Society for Research into Higher Education.

Cultural influence on peer relationships in early childhood settings

This paper presents a cultural perspective of young children’s peer relationships. Through reporting on a study of a group of Chinese immigrant children’s learning experiences with peers of the same cultural backgrounds in English dominant early childhood contexts, it reveals that the sharing of a similar cultural heritage may play an important role in the development of relationships for young children in diverse cultural learning communities. This paper is written from the perspectives of socioculture and culture theory. Central to my argument is the contextual dimension of culture. This dimension provides an explanatory structure for understanding immigrant children’s formation of home-culture oriented peer togetherness and peer culture within the paradigm of English dominant spheres. My position is to recognize that the children’s responses to peers are both subject to the influences of their home cultures, and the relationship between different cultures. The notion of cultural relationship is important in this paper, leading to the suggestion that early childhood settings should create an enabling and empowering sociocultural milieu that provides immigrant children with opportunities for intercultural ways of learning and development.

"I'm in their shoes": Experiences of peer educators in sexuality and relationship education

Background: Sexuality and relationship education for adults with an intellectual disability has failed to include them in roles other than as learners. This paper reports findings from a study of the experiences of peer educators with an intellectual disability who co-facilitated a respectful relationships education program. Method: Qualitative data were collected about the experiences of 16 peer educators through in-depth interviews and observations of their work in delivering the program. These data were thematically analysed. Findings: Peer educators reported that peer education gave them a sense of empowerment, positioned them as credible sources of information about relationships, enabled them to help others, and gave them an opportunity to learn new knowledge about respectful relationships, community resources and supports, and new skills. Conclusions: This study presents an alternative approach to relationship education that involves people with an intellectual disability as peer educators and that benefits these people. © 2014 © 2014 Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability, Inc.

Transitional experiences of international postgraduate students utilising a peer mentor programme

Background: Mentoring provides a range of benefits and one of them is social support. The number of students in transnational education has been increasing, and their transition into university is often fraught with difficulties. Universities can support transition through the use of a peer mentor programme (PMP).

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate the transitional issues that international postgraduate students (IPSs) face in their transition to an Australian University. The study also investigated the role played by a mentoring programme, and how this assists students with their transition.

Sample: The sample included 31 IPSs, who had come from Asian European, Middle Eastern, African and South American countries, 15 being male, and 16 being female, with an average age of 24; most had been studying at the Australian University for more than 12 months.

Design and methods: The study utilised a qualitative research method to examine the experiences of IPSs undergoing transition from their home universities to an Australian university. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students, who were asked about their transition experiences and the assistance of the mentor programme. Thematic analysis was then conducted to determine themes from the research.

Results: IPSs reported mixed experiences with their transition. Those with difficulties referred to loneliness, different studying practices, finding accommodation and making friends. IPSs reported that the PMP helped, as mentors provided the necessary social support, friendship, information and confidence to overcome those difficulties. Those students who did not have problems with their transition had reported that they had friends or family that assisted them with their transition. As a result, these students did not need the support of mentors to the same degree as those students having problems.

Conclusions: It is concluded that mentor programmes were important for transitioning IPSs who had difficulties. Therefore, this study identified a role for a PMP in universities where there are a high proportion of IPSs who are going through transitional problems.

Peer group patterns of adolescent alcohol using behaviours in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, US

 The goal of this study was to examine and cross-nationally compare the peer group patterns of alcohol-drinking behaviors among cohorts of early adolescents (ages 11–14 years) in Victoria, Australia, and Washington State, United States. Latent transition analysis revealed that after 1 year, transitions congruent with peer influence (whereby non-drinking adolescents initiated alcohol use in the presence of drinking peers) and reverse peer influence were observed in both states; however, transitions congruent with peer selection (whereby drinking adolescents self-selected into drinking peer groups) were only observed among Victorian early adolescents. Findings were interpreted to suggest that Australian family and cultural norms that more commonly allow early adolescent alcohol use lead to a higher rate of peer selection.

Improving laboratory learning through self and peer assessment of laboratory reports

The laboratory provides an opportunity for students to achieve many learning outcomes including to critically evaluate information, interpret and draw conclusions from scientific data, and communicate scientific results, information, or arguments. This paper describes a laboratory-writing task that involves self and peer evaluation. After discussion of the expectations of laboratory report writing during class, students self and peer evaluate reports. In a process similar to double-blind journal refereeing, students practise critically evaluating the quality of academic writing using a rubric. The summative assessment is based on how consistent their evaluations are with the evaluations of the same reports performed by their peers. The formative assessment is that students receive peer evaluations and feedback via a rubric on reports that they have written. The skill of critically evaluating their own reports is used to improve the laboratory reports in subsequent assessment tasks.

How long is too long in contemporary peer review? Perspectives from authors publishing in conservation biology journals

Delays in peer reviewed publication may have consequences for both assessment of scientific prowess in academics as well as communication of important information to the knowledge receptor community. We present an analysis on the perspectives of authors publishing in conservation biology journals regarding their opinions on the importance of speed in peer-review as well as how to improve review times. Authors were invited to take part in an online questionnaire, of which the data was subjected to both qualitative (open coding, categorizing) and quantitative analyses (generalized linear models). We received 637 responses to a total of 6,547 e-mail invitations sent. Peer-review speed was generally perceived as slow, with authors experiencing a typical turnaround time of 14 weeks while their perceived optimal review time is six weeks. Male and younger respondents seem to have higher expectations of review speed than females and older respondents. Majority of participants attributed lengthy review times to the 'stress' on the peer-review system (i.e., reviewer and editor fatigue), while editor persistence and journal prestige were believed to speed up the review process. Negative consequences of lengthy review times appear to be greater for early career researchers and can also have impact on author morale (e.g. motivation or frustration). Competition among colleagues were also of concern to respondents. Incentivizing peer review was among the top suggested alterations to the system along with training graduate students in peer review, increased editorial persistence, and changes to the norms of peer-review such as opening the peer-review process to the public. It is clear that authors surveyed in this study view the peer-review system as under stress and we encourage scientists and publishers to push the envelope for new peer review models.

Peer mentoring in higher education and the development of leadership skills in mentors

Purpose - We examine the question of whether peer-mentoring programs in higher education develop leadership skills in student mentors.

Methodology/approach - The various forms of peer mentoring are discussed, as well as the benefits that these programs can bestow on mentors. We then turn to a discussion of the relationship between peer mentoring and leadership, and place particular emphasis on implicit leadership theories and the research in this area. A case study of a large peer-mentoring program at an Australian university is undertaken and the various aspects of implicit leadership theory are examined in the light of comments collected from both mentees and mentors.

Findings - Evidence of implicit leadership skills of mentors was seen in the responses of mentees. However, the explicit treatment of' leadership skills in the peer-mentoring program needs to be approached in a more deliberate manner if students are to benefit fully from the experience of mentoring.

Originality/value - While the results of this study were inconclusive, it does provide a basis for further inspection of leadership development within peer- mentoring communities.

Intelligent internet computing: applications and security systems

Intelligent Internet Computing (IIC) is emerging rapidly as an exciting new paradigm including pervasive, grid, and peer-to-peer computing to provide computing and communication services any time and anywhere. IIC paradigm foresees seamless integration of communicating and computational devices and applications embedded in all parts of our environment, from our physical selves, to our homes, our offices, our streets and so on. Although IIC presents exciting enabling opportunities, the benefits will only be realized if application and security issues can be appropriately addressed. This special issue is intended to foster the dissemination of state-of-the-art research in the area of IIC, including novel applications associated with its utilization, security systems and services, security models. We plan to publish high quality manuscripts, which cover the various practical applications and related security theories of IIC. The papers should not be submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere. Submissions of high quality papers describing mature results or on-going work are invited. Selected high-quality papers from “the Eleventh IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC-09) and the Third International Conference on Information Security and Assurance (ISA-09),” will be published in this special issue of Journal of Internet Technology on "Intelligent Internet Computing".

Peer research with young Muslims and the politics of knowledge production

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw on the authors’ experiences as a team made up of both “insiders” and “outsiders” in order to investigate how an insider-outsider peer research method facilitates productive forms of research into the lives of young Muslims, and to contribute to debates about ways of knowing youth. The authors aim to shift focus from a common claim that peer research methods simply improve research about youth to more deeply investigate how they enable, as well as limit, the production of particular kinds of knowledge, in this case, about Muslim youth in Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The research aimed to explore how “ordinary” young Australian Muslims engage in civic life. Yet the authors were faced with the challenge of accessing and recruiting “ordinary” youth in times of Islamophobia, wherein Muslim communities expressed serious concerns about their voices being misinterpreted, misused and misappropriated. Therefore, the authors sought to utilise an approach of outsider-designed and guided research that was then shaped and executed by insider peer researchers. It is this research design and its execution that the authors interrogate in this paper. Findings – As well as affording the authors access and the elicitation of rich, complex and high-quality data, the approach also fostered more complex stories about young Muslim identities and experiences, and enabled the authors to contest some common and homogenising representations. It also allowed opportunities for fundamental issues inherent in these kinds of qualitative research methods to be made explicit. These include the politics of performativity and issues of positionality in the peer research process. The authors suggest that the “insider” and “outsider” approach succeeded not so much because it got the authors closer to the “truth” about young Muslims’ civic lives, but because it revealed some of the mechanics of the ways stories are constructed and represented in youth research. Originality/value – The originality and value of this paper lie in its contribution to a debate about the politics of knowledge production about young people and Muslims in particular, and in its effort to move forward a discussion about how to be accountable in youth research to the various communities and to one another in insider-outsider research teams.