Editorial: Focus on Peer Leaders and Peer Learning in Different National and Disciplinary Contexts

Welcome to Volume 15 of the Journal of Peer Learning. It is pleasing to see the number of quality submissions this year, which has led to the publication of a second volume for 2022, a clear indication that peer learning is an important area of research and scholarship. This edition comprises six peer-reviewed articles offering perspectives on peer learning from across the globe. Three of the articles focus on the experiences of peer leaders, which have received increasing attention in recent years, just as there has been an increasing focus across the higher education sector on the related notion of students as partners. In the Australian enabling education context, Pham considers the role of professional development in strengthening peer leaders’ capacity to offer non-academic support as well as a pedagogical focus. Cofer et al. also focus on the importance of non-academic skillsets, in particular those of peer tutors and Supplemental Instruction Leaders in North American learning centres. The third article draws on research into the online peer-assisted learning context at an English university to explore the motivations and experiences of the peer leaders in their program. The focus in the fourth article then shifts to The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) were piloted within a General Education Foundation Programme to support student learning. The final two articles are set in the health disciplines with Safari et al. examining peer tutoring in a midwifery course at an Iranian university and Dennis et al. investigating the possibilities in combining simulation-based learning with peer-assisted learning in the physiotherapy context. The diversity on display in this volume, both in terms of the focus of individual papers as well as the contexts in which peer learning applies, shows the fundamental strength of the notion of peer learning and its expanding application across the higher education sector.