Abstract

Development of social skills is a necessary part of training to promote good academic and social performance among university students. The objective of the research was to evaluate the impact of a peer tutoring program on developing social skills among students majoring in elementary education at a university in the Araucanía region of Chile. This was a mixed-methods study that included the participation of 66 first-year students divided into an intervention group and a control group. A questionnaire and a focus group discussion were used to gather data. The results showed that the students who participated in the peer tutoring program showed a statistically significant increase in their development of social skills in comparison to the other group. The research provides evidence that peer tutoring clearly constitutes a pertinent strategy for developing social skills among pedagogy students.