Classmates often make better tutors than university lecturers or school teachers, according to an expert in educational methodology.
Eric Mazur, a professor of applied physics at Harvard University in the United States, said his students were frequently more successful at explaining complex formulae and problems than he was.
This prompted him to develop a teaching approach called 'Peer Instructions' which is gaining recognition in universities and secondary schools in the US and overseas.
Professor Mazur formulated his teaching model after realising that, while many students learned sufficient facts to pass exams, few gained a thorough enough understanding of a subject to apply it in daily life.
He found that encouraging students to explain to each other why they thought a problem had a particular result helped them gain a better comprehension of the uses of a topic or formula and the reasons for learning it.
Professor Mazur's interest in teaching methodology was sparked by an article in the American Journal of Physics by David Hestenes, a lecturer at Arizona State University.
