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I want to first say how delighted and honored I am to be here at this
particular symposium. I have deep roots in peer education. More than a
few years ago, in fact, more than I would care to admit, I was sitting in
seats similar to yours at a peer education conference as an undergraduate
at Canisius College, a small college in Buffalo, New York. Since that pivotal
time, I have devoted a large portion of my student and professional career
to peer education and trying to better understand the benefits peer
educators derive from being in these experiences. You are part of a ripple
effect that is adding great value to the lives of students, helping students
to navigate the collegiate environment and encouraging them to make
healthy choices. Thank you for this incredible work.
As I start my remarks today, I want to acknowledge a brief note on
terminology. I use the term Peer Educator, and I know that at least at SMU
you use the term Peer Helper. Some of you may use even another term.
But, I think it is safe to say that we are using those terms synonymously.
The data I am discussing today is not just data from SMU. In a few
instances where it is, I will say so.
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I want to devote my time today to 4 specific areas of what the
research team and I have learned through 15 years of insights and
trends in peer education. These four themes are:
(1) What motivates peer educators to take on these important roles
(2) Beliefs peer educators have for the most effective ways to
changing a peers’ behavior and how they go about this change
(3) The Learning peer educators report
(4) Training and some noteworthy areas to be thinking about.
So, I hope my comments today will stimulate for those of you who
serve as peer educators what you are learning from your experiences
and for those of you who are advisors, what you want peer educators
to learn from their experiences or how you might go about assessing
this learning.
So, I ask you to take a sheet of paper and come-up with 3 areas of
learning from this symposium and share this list with your fellow
peers and advisors.
By a show of hands, how many of you have been influenced by
a friend or peer at your institution?
Exactly.
The research on the pivotal role peers play in student growth
and development while in college is unequivocal. And that is
why people like me who work with students have capitalized on
the positive influence you can have with peers and fellow
students.
Indeed, peer educators are widely respected and valued
students on college campuses.
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Let me tell you a little about how I came to direct this project and what
we are trying to do through it.
In 2004, the BACCHUS Peer Education Network (currently the BACCHUS
Initiatives of NASPA) approached me and asked me if I would be
interested in directing a funded national study to better understand what
peer educators were learning, and how they were making meaning from
their experiences. So, basically, someone said I will give you some money
will you help us. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am not one to turn
down money especially for a cause I truly believe in.
So that year, I and 2 graduate students talked with over 100 peer
educators about their experiences. From those initial conversations and
through a good old fashion of combing through the higher education
literature on peer education, we developed the National Peer Educator
Survey (NPES). The NPES quickly became a tool we could use in our effort
to track peer educator student learning and development.
In the NPES, we look at six specific areas of learning (we call them
domains), which are represented by each of the hexagons on this slide:
cognitive complexity; intrapersonal development; interpersonal
development; practical competence; knowledge acquisition, construction,
integration, and application; humanitarianism and civic engagement. I am
going to share with you some trends we are seeing in 3 of these areas of
learning.
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Each year, we gather data and provide institutions with an annual
snapshot of learning outcomes reported by peer educators both
institutionally and more widely.
From over a decade of collecting data from peer educators at over
400 institutions, we know students who are peer educators
experience significant gains as a result of their role as peer educators.
In addition, we examine motivations for becoming a peer educator,
time peer educators devote to activities and experiences that
enhance their educational pursuits,
behaviors peer educators use to motivate a behavior change in peers,
and the types of training peer educators receive in their positions.
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Now, this brings me to the first of the four themes I would like to talk
about. Motivations.
I think you are probably not surprised that by and far, much like many of
you seated in this auditorium, peer educators have taken on their roles
because they want to help others.
Also noteworthy is that peer educators are motivated because of the
knowledge they want to gain. This translates well for those students who
want to work in helping professions given that 66% of peer educators
used their peer education experience as a form of career exploration.
Now what has been interesting for us as researchers is that most peer
educators don’t take on these roles until later in their college experience.
In fact, most of the peer educators became peer educators in their 3rd
and 4th year of college. So, when you think about becoming a peer
educator as a way to become involved in college, what might not be
happening for these students in their first or second year of college?
How many of you would agree that one of these 3 areas helped shape
your motivation for becoming involved as a peer helper.
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This brings me to my 2nd theme, Changing Behavior.
Here we wanted to know what do peer educators believe are effective
strategies to change peers’ behaviors AND what methods do peer educators
use.
It probably won’t surprise you that 85% of peer educators believe role
modeling has the greatest impact to motivate a change behavior in a peer. Yet,
one of the challenges peer educators may face in their role is what does it
mean to be a role model? Can you be a role model when you want to? Only
when you are in your peer educator role? Is there ever a time when you are not
in your peer educator role? Whose responsibility is it to hold members of your
peer group responsible for when they see questionable behavior by members
of your group? Does life become a fish bowl and you are the fish and everyone
is watching what you are doing? Another important issue to consider is if
students are receiving AND learning the skills they need to effectively motivate
a change in peers’ behavior.
When we look at results more locally, 100% of peer helpers at SMU indicate
they believe directly confronting someone is among the top 3 methods to
motivate change behavior, yet our trend data suggest this only to be 50%
among other peer helpers. So, something to ponder is why might this be?
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Now, this brings me to my third theme for today, and one where we will spend a
little more time -a focus on learning outcomes.
By another quick show of hands, how many of you believe you have learned
something from being a peer educator?
The X axis that just appeared represents 53 of the learning outcomes we ask
students to report to us on the NPES.
If we measured the influence of being a peer educator on the outcomes students
report from being a peer educator, we would say the learning peer educators are
deriving from these experiences is alive and well.
This EKG line, then represents how peer educators rate themselves on these
outcomes before becoming a peer educator.
And then, this EKG line represents how peer educators rate themselves on these
outcomes after becoming a peer educator.
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From the last 5 years of data, we have looked at the top trends peer educators report
about skill sets specifically related to their peer educator positions.
We’ve looked at skills like
“Knowledge about general health issues”
“Presenting an educational program with a teammate” OR
“Knowledge about campus resources”. Since we know peer educators often are
presented with issues and concerns by their peers and knowing how to refer to
another area of campus is helpful.
The grey blocks represent how peer educators rated themselves before becoming
peer educators and the lime green represent after becoming a peer educator. By
looking at the green circles and percentages, you can see the vast growth peer
educators are saying they believe they have developed strong or very strong skill sets
in.
Since peer educators report very high outcomes in these skill sets, we must also
encourage peer educators to reflect on how the methods they used to develop these
skills can be applied in other settings (e.g., in the classroom, or the job search
process, etc…).
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We aren’t just interested in knowing about the practical side of peer
educator development.
We want to know if being a peer educator helps students develop skills
to help them succeed in college AND even beyond their collegiate
experience.
The light blue blocks represent how peer educators rated themselves
before becoming peer educators and the fuchsia blocks represent after
becoming a peer educator.
There are some interesting outcomes here, which have implications
beyond the peer educator role. For example, when you look at the first
outcome, ”Feeling a part of campus” or “Having a positive self-
concept”, we know that when students report higher scores in these
areas, they have an increased sense of belonging, which is more likely
to lead to retention and persistence. So, good news here again is that
peer educators are reporting great gains in a number of areas, which is
helpful while in college and then beyond.
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The next 3 slides are a snapshot of 3 learning domains and a greater
sense of what we are learning.
In the far column to your right you will see some of the outcomes we
attach to intrapersonal development. Here we are interested in those
skills that highlight the ability to reflect on achievement, identity, and
goals with self-awareness and integrity.
BEFORE becoming a peer educator, slightly more than one-third of
students reported having very strong or strong skills and their ability to
accept strengths and deficiencies. And 88% reported a strong to very
strong skillset after becoming a peer educator.
Then, in another outcome, we all most likely want students to gain a
better understanding of who they are and the values important to
them. Again, after peer educators took on their roles, more than 95%
reported having very strong to strong skill sets here.
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As in the slide before, in the column to your right, you will see some of the
outcomes we attach to practical competence. Here we want to understand the
capacity to apply knowledge and skills gained through experience to inform
personal and professional success.
Although this is my first time in Singapore, I do work in some other countries,
most of it in South Africa. And one of the top areas students often struggle in is
time management. So, before becoming a peer educator, only half could say they
had strong to very strong time management skills. But after, over 80% indicate
they could effectively organize their time.
Also noteworthy is that BEFORE becoming a peer educator, 25% of peer
educators reported having Very Strong or Strong knowledge about general health
issues
AFTER Becoming Peer Educator 96% report Very strong or strong knowledge
This finding has led us to wonder why are students reporting such low skills
before becoming peer educators, particularly since many are becoming peer
educators in their 3rd or 4th year in college. Perhaps students aren’t comfortable
talking about general health issues early-on. OR are their stigmas attached to
talking about health and wellness and are there topics that are just too taboo to
discuss?
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The last domain I will mention, Interpersonal Development, is
one of the largest domains we measure. Here we are trying to
understand the capacity of peer educators to develop
meaningful relationships and understand the importance of
collaboration to achieve a goal. We explore items like facilitating
a group, managing conflicts, and communicating effectively.
Again, these are skill sets we want students to develop for use
in college and for lifelong development. Less than 50% of
students reported strong to very strong skills in leading a group
before becoming a peer educator, but after they report 90% as
having strong to very strong skills. This represents a 43%
increase in growth.
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Finally, when we first developed the survey, we asked students what
areas they were being trained on. And interestingly, over the years there
has been a shift in training to be not only on general health and wellness
related issues, but to areas such as
Mental Health Awareness
Bystander Intervention
Sexual Assault/Relationship Violence
Stress Management
These areas of training may not surprise you as they are some of the top
issues we see on many, if not most, college and university campuses
today.
Also interesting is that annually there has been a 10% increase in the
number of hours of training peer educators receive. And on the next
slide, I’ll highlight some of the areas and range of this training.
Perhaps most revealing is that almost two-thirds of peer educators are
having conversations with peers on topics where they receive no training.
I’ll highlight some of these areas.
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Peer educators report receiving 56 total hours of training in their
roles, which represents about 27 hours per semester.
The BACCHUS organization I named earlier, has a certified peer
educator training, and a little less than 60% have received that
training.
Many of the peer education groups were established to address
issues of alcohol and tobacco use and physical wellness.
Next up stress management, sexual assault/relationship violence,
violence prevention, and bystander intervention
The greatest swing in training trends has been to mental health
awareness.
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Now let’s take a look at two of the top areas peer educators
were trained on: bystander intervention and mental health
awareness. When we look at bystander intervention we get a
sense that of the 88% of peer educators trained, they are using
their skills in a number of ways (61% talked with someone, 46%
handed out information, etc….)
Similar results were for those peer educators receiving mental
health awareness training.
So, this is some good news. But stay tuned.
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We also asked peer educators to report topics they receive no
training on. Can you identify any of these topics and whether
you talked with someone about the topic but didn’t have
training in it?
If I was to bet on a shift that might happen in the next couple of
years is that more peer educators will receive training on some
of these topics –particularly vaping given the focus of the
media on recent events surrounding its use.
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Let’s look at another example. When we looked at the data on
the top portion of this slide, we were again excited to see peer
educators were using their training to reach peers in a variety of
ways.
However, when we also started to look at the peer educators
who weren’t being trained on topics, we became a little more
concerned. In this example, 8% of peer educators aren’t being
trained on sexual assault and violence prevention. And at first,
we might not think that is so bad. But then, we see that of
those 8% not being trained, 11% are presenting a program, 30%
are handing out information, and 31% are talking with
someone.
This is just one example of how we need to look at the types of
training our peer educators are receiving, where they are using
their skills, and then in what areas do we need to enhance our
training.
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The blue columns depict the percentage of peer educators who
are NOT receiving training on a topic, and the fuchsia columns
represents peer educators who are not receiving training but
having conversations with peers. So, although only a small
portion of peer educators are not receiving some training on
some topics, like self-care or alcohol use, a great number of
those are still having conversations.
What training needs to happen such that peer educators have
the knowledge and skill base for the topics they are engaging
their peers around?
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This slide pedicts 3 recommendations we have developed from the
trends we have seen.
First, Develop a set of learning outcomes (whether they align with the
NPES) or another body of literature. Developing Learning Outcomes
helps everyone better understand the intended learning of these
experiences.
Second Recruitment –although I didn’t talk about some of the
demographics and characteristics of peer educators, we see that 80%
of peer educators are females.
Are there certain academic disciplines or majors that aren’t being
represented in your peer education programs? How can you devise a
recruitment strategy that seeks to increase recruitment from some
underrepresented areas?
Third Training –be sure to actively communicate between peer
educators and advisors on the types of topics peer educators are
having (or are not having) conversations with their peers.
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