The Use of Peer Teaching Quality Managers to Improve Student Learning in a Construction Project Management Course

The objective of this study was to measure the impact of a special form of peer-teaching that utilizes a group of students as peer teachers for another larger group of students enrolled in the same Construction Project Management course. A peer-teaching methodology was implemented, that made use of Quality Managers (QM) as instructional guides. According to Jeager et al. (2013), a QM is a student or students who are enrolled in a course and serve as instructional and supportive extensions of their professor in lab and class settings. The students are recruited and guided by the course instructor and serve for only one assignment or lecture per semester. Jeager et al. (2013) stated that the use of QMs provide higher-level classroom and lab experiences in situations where the learning experience would otherwise need to be scaled back, or possibly eliminated, due to limitations of larger classes. In this study a QM peer-teaching methodology was used, in which a group of students (four) were selected to lead a scheduling software lecture. Amongst the group of four, one student was identified as the QM, in which they knew the scheduling software (Microsoft Project) and the remaining three had no experience with the software. The teaching group had approximately 12 weeks to learn Microsoft Project, develop a lecture, and present it to the remaining students enrolled in the class during one lecture period. The teaching group was primarily reliant on learning Microsoft Project from the embedded QM. The peer-teaching methodology was validated in two ways; i) in-course surveys, to assess student learning perceptions, submitted to both the teaching group and the remaining students, and ii) objective grade comparison from the student-led lecture and a professor-led lecture teaching a similar scheduling software package (Primavera). This entire process was completed in the Spring 2016 semester and again in the Spring 2017 semester, with comparable class size and demographics. Data collected via student surveys indicated that the student-led group enjoyed teaching the topic and their perception of learning the software increased. The survey also revealed that the teaching group benefited from the expertise of the QM and that the remaining students preferred the student-led lecture. The homework grade average of the two comparative lectures showed a higher average grade for the student-led lecture (94%) over the professor-led lecture (88%) in Spring 2016. The Spring 2017 semester showed similar results, in which the student-led lecture (95%) had higher average grades than the professor-led lecture (85%). It can be concluded that the course was not adversely affected by the peer-teaching methodology, but also that peer teaching may have contributed to improved student learning in this course.