Cross-age peer tutors in asynchronous discussion groups: studying the impact of tutors labelling their interventions M. De Smet, H. Van Keer & M. Valcke Ghent University, Department of Educational Studies, Ghent, Belgium Abstract Cross-age tutors were randomly assigned to one of the three tutor training conditions distin- guished for the current study: (1) the labelling experimental condition, characterized by requirements to label their tutor interventions, based on the e-moderating model of Salmon; (2) the non-labelling experimental condition, focusing on tutor’s acting upon the role of an e-moderator without preliminary requirements with regard to labelling the phase of e-moderating in their messages; and (3) a control condition, typified by all-round information on online facilitation. The results indicated that tutors are not really capable in labelling their interventions accurately. Nevertheless, labelling did foster enhanced e-moderating activities. Compared to tutors in the control condition, tutors in the experimental conditions performed at a higher level, implying that they adopted more balanced tutor support. Labelling did not result in a differential impact on self-efficacy and perceived collective efficacy. Keywords efficacy beliefs, labelling, peer tutoring, scripting, tutor training. Introduction In the present study, cross-age peer tutoring was intro- duced in asynchronous discussion groups to support freshmen discussing authentic problems. Fourth-year students were involved as tutors to provide structure and to scaffold collaborative learning in a computer- supported collaborative learning environment (CSCL). Prior research, examining the nature of the actual tutor support, revealed that peer tutors were mainly engaged in social support, and paid less attention to stimulating ‘knowledge construction’ and ‘personal development’ (De Smet et al. 2008). According to Salmon (2000), online tutor support should embrace a wider variety of e-moderating activities, ranging from support for ‘access and motivation’ to ‘socialization’, ‘information-exchange’, ‘knowledge construction’ and ‘personal development’. Therefore, both the design and content-focus of tutor training were stated as critical variables to be considered in future research (De Smet et al. 2008). Taking the above mentioned results into account, the main aim of the present study was to improve and balance the nature of peer tutor interventions by foster- ing self-monitoring. As suggested by Zimmerman and Paulsen (1995, in Ellis and Zimmerman (2001, p. 210), ‘during high-quality self-monitoring people track or control their understanding and performance’. Accord- ing to Chang (2007), applying a self-monitoring strategy is strongly recommended for Web-based instruction. In the present study, self-monitoring was invoked by inviting online peer tutors to label their interventions. In particular, three different tutor training approaches – in which one particular group of tutors Accepted: 27 March 2008 Correspondence: Marijke De Smet, Ghent University, Department of Educational Studies, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Gent, Belgium. Email: Marijke.DeSmet@UGent.be doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00284.x Original article 462 © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (2008), 24, 462–473