Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Learning, Culture and Social Interaction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lcsi Full length article Peer organized study groups: Successful learning interactions in Mexican undergraduate physics Antonia Candela Educational Research Department, Center of Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav), Cda. de los Tenorios 235, Col. Granjas Coapa, Deleg. Tlalpan, CP 14330 México City, Mexico 1. Introduction Research on peer learning in higher education is of growing interest, perhaps because the increasing number of university stu- dents and the diversity of their social origins and learning backgrounds produce high dropout rates, impacting the cost-effectiveness of higher education. Institutions are thus looking for alternative practices to improve learning. Peer learning has shown good results especially for courses where the requirements to improve retention, learning achievements and research skill development are more crucial (Boud & Lee, 2005). However, Boud and Lee (2005), among others, call for studies on peer practices of students in university courses because those practices are perpetuated without precise information about stu- dents' interactions and their process of participation as a form of learning. Researchers (Hussain & Majoka, 2011; Yurt & Aktas, 2016) also call for careful empirical studies in order to better understand learning practices of peers in specific contexts. Roscoe and Chi (2007) state that a key to understanding the potential of peer learning lies in understanding the details of peer interactions, where process data can be drawn from a smaller set of representative students in specific locations (p. 539). Taking into account these research interests, this article addresses the study of the forms of participation in the social practice of solving homework problems as a way of learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) among study groups of undergraduate physics students. The focus of my study is on process data, on how students interact, how they socially participate in homework tasks. I look at the dynamics of their peer interaction framing the content and cultural tools of the physics discipline in order to solve the weekly homework problems in self-organized study groups. I will present the theoretical perspectives and the academic tools used for data analysis and relate my findings to existing literature of peer learning as locally, culturally and historically situated social practice, framed by the theory of social practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). After the research context is described, I proceed to the analysis of the social practice in the study groups. 2. Theoretical frameworks In higher education, peer learning has been one of the key trends over more than 20 years. The first reviews (Topping, 1996), which focused on peer tutoring as the most researched form of peer learning, showed the importance of these practices as a way to deal with high dropout rates and cost-effectiveness in higher education, improving the quality of teaching and learning. “Peer tutoring is characterized by specific role-taking as tutor or tutees with a high focus on curriculum content, and usually also on clear procedures for interaction, in which participants (especially the tutor) receive generic and/or specific training.” The tutors give non- professional help but they are more knowledgeable than the tutees (Topping, 2005:632). These reviews (Topping, 1996, 2005) show that works on peer tutoring are basically oriented by comparative approaches. They compare pre with post-tests in peer tutoring groups of diverse disciplines and educational levels (Boud, Cohen, & Sampson, 2001; Howe, 2013) and describe the developed skills and positive learning results of peer tutoring groups in relation with the achievements of more traditional forms of teaching (Hussain & Majoka, 2011; Yurt & Aktas, 2016). Other works analyze the improvements https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2018.03.007 Received 21 March 2018; Accepted 26 March 2018 E-mail address: acandela@cinvestav.mx. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 19 (2018) 11–21 Available online 17 April 2018 2210-6561/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T