Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Lucas Lima de Vasconcelos

Abstract

Students interact with technology daily; whether that is in the classroom, engaging with classmates, or studying material. Although technology has been widely adopted across the field of higher education, it has not been widely utilized to engage with students through the peer-to-peer support model. The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the implementation of educational technology training and its effect on undergraduate peer educators’ confidence to utilize technology in their plans for their peer-to-peer support sessions at a university in the southeast of the United States of America. The research will address the following research questions: How confident are peer educators in their abilities to utilize educational technologies in their peer-to-peer support sessions? To what degree does the educational technology training impact peer educators’ session plans? What are the peer educators’ perceptions about incorporating educational technologies in their peer-to-peer support sessions?

The participants of this study were 17 peer educators who work at the University’s Student Success Center. The participants took part in a four-week intervention where they learned an overview of educational technology, and experience a more in-depth training on Kahoot, Mentimeter, and Class Collaborate. A convergent parallel mixed methods approach was used through the execution of observations, individual interviews, and session plans. Data was analyzed through inductive analysis and descriptive statistics.

Results from this study demonstrate that technology confidence does not always translate to confidence in utilizing educational technology platforms. Peer educators demonstrated the perception that while educational technology can be helpful, it depends on the course material they are covering. The intervention resulted in the participants demonstrating increased confidence in integrating educational technology in session plans, regardless of the type of material being covered.

Rights

© 2025, Christopher Gulino

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