Peer Tutoring at the Universidad de la República as a Training Experience: The view of the tutors

Abstract

Peer Tutoring (TEP in Spanish) is part of a central policy of the Universidad de la República of Uruguay (Udelar) whose process of crediting was consolidated towards 2017. They are understood as a learning process in which university students accompany and support others, aiming for their full insertion into university life. This paper presents the evaluation of the experience by a generation of peer tutors, with the aim of knowing their profile, their previous trajectories, their evaluation of the course and their assessments of how these tutorships contribute to their own educational trajectories. Three mixed forms were used to collect the results, at the beginning and at the end of the experience. The results reflect a very marked conformity with both the training course and the practices in the territory, as well as a high evaluation of the contributions to the participants' own training. However, some challenges have been identified in order to achieve a greater impact of the experience at the institutional level, especially in relation to gender and the careers from which the tutors come. This reveals the need for greater involvement and articulation of all institutional actors to promote these experiences not as peripheral initiatives, but as part of the organizational paradigm.