Peer learning in higher education: Patterns of talk and interaction in skills centre simulation

This study conceptualises patterns of peer talk and interaction and the potentials for learning inherent in a peer tutoring setting in an undergraduate nursing education skill centre. Third-year students are responsible for training first-year students in performing nursing procedures. The paper identifies patterns of peer interaction as they occur in a pre-training reflection setting where students prepare for practising the procedures. Three interaction patterns are identified: a tutor-led question-and-answer pattern and two exploratory patterns: cumulative-exploratory and dispute-exploratory. The analysis additionally uncovered three ways of dealing with the object of learning: recitation, re-contextualisation and thematic errors and sloppiness. We suggest that analyses of peer learning need to go beyond the level of interaction and also address its content. Furthermore, interaction patterns might afford an expansive or more restrictive way of framing and dealing with the object of learning.