Peer Assisted Study Sessions

What is PASS?

PASS stands for Peer-Assisted Study Sessions.

PASS is a peer facilitated, cooperative student support scheme for all students. PASS operates in those Units of Study (UoS) that students have found very difficult in the past. Research in the UK, USA and Australia has consistently demonstrated that students who regularly attend PASS schemes can expect an increase in their academic achievement.

PASS attendance is voluntary but highly recommended. It is not a remedial program for "struggling" students, but rather, a program for all students who want to improve their academic performance.

At other universities, students who have attended more than 10 PASS sessions across semester have been shown to improve their grades by up to 20 marks in comparison to students who did not attend.

History of PASS

PASS is based on a model of peer interaction known as Supplemental Instruction (SI) originally developed at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the 1970s by Dr Deanna Martin, where it still operates more than 30 years later. Variations of SI (variations of SI are known as PASS or PAL-Peer Assisted Learning) are now implemented in more than 1000 universities across the globe, including a number of Australian universities (e.g., PASS has been successfully operating in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne for five years).

PASS began its pilot program in Semester 2, 2005 at USYD and operated in Accounting 1A (ACCT1001), Intermediate Microeconomics (ECON2001) and Intermediate Macroeconomics (ECON2002) undergraduate Units of Study. The program will expand in 2006 to incorporate a wider range of Accounting, Economic, Commercial Law and Econometric Units of Study.