The effects of Peer Mediation with Young Children (PMYC) on children's cognitive modifiability

Abstract

Peer mediation with young children is a relatively novel approach aimed at teaching young children how to mediate to their peers. The main benefits of peer mediation are in developing children's mediation teaching style and cognitive modifiability. The peer mediation developed recently is based on Vygotsky's sociocultural and Feuerstein's mediated learning experience theories. The main objectives of the study were to investigate the effects of the Peer Mediation with Young Children (PMYC) programme on children's cognitive modifiability of mediators and learners and to study the effects of cognitive level of the learner and mediator on their cognitive modifiability following the programme. A sample of 178 pupils (89 mediators in Grade 3 and 89 learners in Grade 1) was randomly assigned to experimental (N=43 dyads) and control (N=46 dyads) groups. The mediators in the experimental group participated in the PMYC programme, whereas the mediators in the control group received a substitute intervention aimed at emphasizing general conditions of peer interaction. Following the intervention, mediators of both groups received a demonstration of a multimedia programme as a preparation for the peer mediation interaction and later taught it to their young counterparts. Following the teaching session (e.g. teaching of seriation problems), mediators in both groups were given a dynamic assessment measure of analogies. The learners however were given a test of seriation before and after the intervention. The findings showed that following the intervention the experimental mediators showed higher level of analogies scores, as well as higher improvement on the dynamic analogies measure as compared with control mediators. The experimental learners showed higher pre- to post-intervention achievements on the seriation problems as compared with control learners. The findings showed also that when there was a match between the mediator and learner's cognitive level (i.e. low-low or high-high) the differences between the experimental and control groups were minor and negligible. However, when the mediator-learner cognitive levels did not match, the experimental learners received higher scores than the control learners. Mediators in the experimental group had to cope with the incongruent cognitive level by facilitating their mediational approach and consequently enhancing the learner's performance. The findings are discussed in regard to Piaget, Vygotsky and Feuerstein's theories and recent research on peer assisted learning.

The effects of mother‐child mediated learning strategies on psychological resilience and cognitive modifiability of boys with learning disability

“…Cronbach‐alpha reliabilities reported by Tzuriel () were .80 and .85 for pre‐ and post‐teaching phases, respectively. The CMB has been validated in several studies in the UK (e.g., Lauchlan & Elliott, ) and in Israel (Passig, Tzuriel, & Eshel‐Kedmi, ; Tzuriel, ; Tzuriel, Bengio, & Kashy‐Rosenbaum, ; Tzuriel & Shamir, ) and significantly predicting reading comprehension (Tzuriel, ).…”

“…() suggested 12 strategies of MLE. However, only the first five were operationalized in studies of infants and young children (e.g., Klein, ; Klein, Weider, & Greenspan, ; Lidz, ; Tzuriel, ; Tzuriel, , , ; Tzuriel & Eran, ; Tzuriel & Ernst, ; Tzuriel & Weiss, ; Tzuriel & Weitz, ) and in studies on peer mediation (e.g., Shamir & Tzuriel, ; Tzuriel & Caspi, ; Tzuriel & Shamir, ; Tzuriel & Shamir ) and siblings (e.g., Klein, Zarur, & Feldman, ; Tzuriel & Hanuka‐Levy, ). These MLE strategies are described here briefly.…”

Dynamic Assessment and Response to Intervention

“…Zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a concept introduced by Vygotsky (1934/1962) to capture the distance between what a child can do by himself or herself versus what he or she can do with a bit of assistance from adults (Chak, 2001; Kanevsky & Geake, 2004; Wennergren & Ronnerman, 2006) or peers (Fernandez, Wegerif, Mercer, & Rojas-Drummond, 2001–2002; Tzuriel & Shamir, 2007). ZPD can be understood as a psychological reality where mastery of skill and knowledge acquisition is taking place in real time.…”

“…Mediation arises through joint engagement with a cognitive task at hand: The role of the mediator is to gauge the level of the student’s functioning and to reformulate the task in such a form that the student can master the task. Thus, an MLE is characterized by intentionality and reciprocity of the interaction (i.e., the student is open to receiving help and the moderator is willing to provide it); mediation of meaning (i.e., the moderator is directly engaged in managing the student’s cognitive process and his or her emotions and motivation about that process), and transcendence (i.e., the moderator needs to bridge existing experience and transfer the functions learned to new situations; for further discussion and examples, see Kozulin, 2005; Kozulin & Garb, 2004; Tzuriel & Shamir, 2007). Mediation is used both for clinical purposes in the context of MLE and as a primary assessment technique in the instrument developed by Feuerstein and his colleagues, the Learning Potential Assessment Device (LPAD).…”

How the Psychology of Education Contributes to Research With a Social Impact on the Education of Students With Special Needs: The Case of Successful Educational Actions

“…According to Dainez and Smolka (2014), Vygotsky's concept of compensation in relation to children with disabilities implies a social formation of mind and therefore the social responsibility of organizing an appropriate educational environment for these children. Vygotsky's approach has been taken into account in studies about how peer mediation increases learning, especially when peers have different cognitive levels (Tzuriel and Shamir, 2007), and research on children with disabilities, for instance, cerebral palsy, has been conducted based on Vygotsky's contributions and showed improvements in these children's spatial abilities, social interaction, autonomy, and participation in class activities (Akhutina et al, 2003;Heidrich and Bassani, 2012).…”