Jonathan B.
Velasco
and
Marilyne
Stains
*
Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA. E-mail: mstains2@unl.edu
First published on 20th July 2015
It has been established that both tutors and tutees gain from tutoring sessions. However, tutors' benefits may be enhanced or limited depending on the type of behaviours they perform during the tutoring sessions. Although behaviours enhancing both tutor and tutee learning can be promoted by training, generalized tutor training models that are often used do not take into account tutors' preexisting perceptions of tutoring, which may guide their instructional behaviours. The goals of this multiple-case study of three chemistry tutors are to characterise their perceptions of tutoring, their behaviors during tutoring sessions, and the connections between their perceptions and behaviors. Data was collected through interviews in which tutors' perceptions of tutors and tutoring were probed and through video recordings of three to four sessions for each tutor. Interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Video recordings of sessions were analyzed using a list of codes corresponding to different types of behaviours that had been reported in prior tutoring studies. Analysis of the interviews indicated that tutors' perceptions of tutoring did not overlap fully across all the three tutors. Cross-case analysis indicates that tutors' perceptions of tutees and of the role of tutor were reflected in the instructional behaviours the tutors enacted during the sessions. The results of this study may be used to improve tutor training programmes, particularly through examining individual tutor's perceptions of tutoring as this may help anticipate natural instructional preferences of tutors.
Despite the presence of tutoring on college campuses and within chemistry departments, few studies have investigated processes associated with positive impacts of tutoring in chemistry at the postsecondary level. Most tutoring studies have been conducted at the K-12 level and have focused on reading and mathematics. Moreover, studies on processes of tutoring have often been conducted under controlled, experimental conditions using tutors with low content knowledge (e.g.King et al., 1998; Chi et al., 2001; Roscoe and Chi, 2004; Ismail and Alexander, 2005) rather than more naturalistic settings with knowledgeable tutors and curricula and behaviours not controlled by external entities.
Most processes studies have been focused on identifying tutors' and tutees' effective behaviours. However, it has been suggested that tutors' perceptions of tutoring can influence how tutors behave during tutoring sessions (Foot et al., 1990) and that the relationship between perceptions and behaviours should be further explored (Roscoe, 2007; Roscoe and Chi, 2007, 2008). The present study addresses this suggestion by investigating the relationship between chemistry tutors' perceptions of tutoring and their instructional behaviours during tutoring sessions.
Although there is evidence that tutor behaviours can be influenced by training (Fuchs et al., 1994; Ismail and Alexander, 2005; Kofod et al., 2008; Bailey, 2010; de Smet et al., 2010), research in this area also indicates that training is not always effective. For example, it has been demonstrated that without reminders of their training, tutors have a tendency to shift away from the prescribed practices and revert to more familiar teaching methods, such as straight explanations of the material (King et al., 1998; Dufrene et al., 2005). One possible reason for the rather underwhelming effect of training programmes on tutor behaviours may come from their structure. These programmes, which are often run at the institutional level, cater to a diverse population of tutors and thus have a tendency to provide general tutoring guidelines and best practices (Topping, 1988; de Groot and Button, 2008; Bailey, 2010). Moreover, these programmes typically do not take into account prospective tutors' perceptions of tutoring, even though these perceptions may drive tutors towards certain behaviours (Allen, 1983; McKellar, 1986; Foot et al., 1990). Therefore, chemistry tutoring sessions could be more effective for tutors and tutees if tutor training programmes leveraged chemistry tutors' perceptions of tutoring, as these may influence tutors' use of KB behaviours (Roscoe, 2007; Roscoe and Chi, 2007).
In general, tutors see themselves as providers of academic help to students in need; in particular, they feel that they should give feedback to students and assess their knowledge (Colvin, 2007; Bailey, 2010; Galbraith and Winterbottom, 2011). Tutors often attributes themselves many roles. For example, high school biology tutors in Galbraith and Winterbottom's (2011) study identified themselves as “setting an example (for their tutees), easy to communicate with, being an authority figure, a motivator, and a friend.” However, this diversity of role perceptions may cause some role strain and role confusion which in turn affect their actions during the tutoring sessions (Colvin, 2007).
Jelfs et al. (2009) investigated perceptions of effective tutoring by 457 college students and 602 tutors using a survey containing 51 descriptors of good tutors; these included “a good tutor gets students to interact” and “a good tutor is an expert in their subject.” A factor analysis on these descriptors revealed different set of factors for the students and the tutors. Tutors' factors included active learning, transmission of knowledge, supporting learning, subject expertise, pastoral care (i.e. caring for students), and vocational guidance. The latter three factors were common to those identified with students but also included critical thinking and promoting interaction. Interestingly, they found differences in the distribution of tutors across these factors. For example, science tutors were more likely to value student support and over transmission of knowledge when compared to humanities tutors. Similar factors were found in Xiao's (2012) study, where tutors' and students' perceptions of the tutor's influence on students' motivation to learn English in a distance-learning university environment were unpacked through essays.
Bailey's (2010) study did not directly examine chemistry tutors' perceptions of their tutees, but these were revealed extemporaneously during the interviews. The ‘walk-in’, or non-appointment tutors described their tutees as lacking in critical knowledge, being unprepared for the tutoring sessions, and unaware of what they do not know. In contrast, the appointment-based ‘learning centre’ tutors were not as explicit with describing their tutees, instead describing strategies that may address tutees' deficiencies, such as taking the lead if the tutee was not prepared.
There are several gaps in the literature regarding tutors' perceptions of tutoring. First, it has been found that tutors' perceptions of tutoring vary with disciplines. Unfortunately, only one of the aforementioned studies (Bailey, 2010) have been conducted explicitly on chemistry tutors; the other studies were concerned with other science domains (Jelfs et al., 2009; Galbraith and Winterbottom, 2011), communications (Colvin, 2007), language (Xiao, 2012), and dentistry (Moore, 2009). Second, some of the aforementioned perceptions of tutoring were not directly addressed. For example, much of the literature on the characteristics of effective tutoring is focused on observations of what makes tutoring effective (e.g., Wood et al., 1976; Lepper et al., 1997) or establishing a learning environment conducive to it (e.g.Topping, 1996; Falchikov, 2001) rather than tutors' perceptions. Finally, few studies (Moore, 2009; Bailey, 2010) have investigated tutors' perceptions as determinants of tutoring behaviours.
The conceptual framework that guided the design and analysis of this study (Fig. 1) contextualize the relationship between practical theories and instructional practices to tutoring. The main thrust of the framework is that tutors' perceptions of tutoring influence their assumed role (Moore, 2009), which, in turn, affect the enactment of their role (Bierman and Furman, 1981; Allen, 1983; Foot et al., 1990; Roscoe and Chi, 2007). Based on the work of Roscoe and Chi, we focus on the relationship between tutoring perceptions and two different types of tutoring behaviours, KT and KB, since these behaviours have been previously connected to enhanced learning for both tutors and tutees (Fuchs et al., 1994; Fuchs et al., 1996; Roscoe and Chi, 2004; Ismail and Alexander, 2005).
(1) What are tutors' perceptions of tutoring?
(2) To what extent do tutors' perceptions of tutoring relate to their behaviours?
The findings from this study may aid in making chemistry tutor training programmes more effective by providing a way for trainers to predict natural behavioural tendencies of future chemistry tutors based on an assessment of their tutoring perceptions. Tailoring the training to address these natural tendencies (either enhance them if productive or diminish them if unproductive) may result in enriched learning experiences for both tutors and tutees.
A multiple-case study approach (Yin, 2009) was used in this study to examine the processes of tutoring across different contexts that are similarly bounded (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p. 29). In this study, each case (Table 1) was bound by the participating tutees and the courses that they were taking when the observations were made.
Tutor | Gender | International student | Tutor training | Graduate level | Tutoring experience | Teaching experience |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chuck | Male | No | No | 2nd | 1.5 years | 1 year (Laboratory) |
Patricia | Female | Yes | No | 2nd | 0.5 years | 1 year (Laboratory) |
Trent | Male | No | No | 3rd | 3 years | 3 years (Laboratory, recitation) |
Tutors were first asked to respond to an online survey which provided us demographics and background information regarding prior tutoring experience and training (Table 1). The tutors were then interviewed using questions adopted and modified from Colvin (2007) and Hall et al. (2008). The following is a partial list of questions from the semi-structured interview protocol that examined different aspects of their perceptions of tutoring (see Appendix A for the complete list of questions and interview materials):
• What is tutoring?
• What is the role of the tutor?
• What are the characteristics of good/bad tutees?
• What are the characteristics of good/bad tutoring sessions? (characteristics of effective tutoring sessions)
• What are the characteristics and actions of good/bad tutors?
Each interview lasted 45–60 minutes and was carried out before the first video-recorded session.
The tutoring sessions, which typically lasted 60 minutes, were video recorded. In order to minimize the researchers' influence on behaviours, tutors and tutees were not given tutoring topics or behavioural cues. Reaction to the presence of the camera or research team (Albrecht, 1985) was decreased through the use of small video cameras. Most tutoring sessions took place in a small interviewing room, which contained a circular table, four chairs, and a whiteboard.
Observation videos were analysed using a coding dictionary compiled from studies on tutoring behaviours; these include explanations (Graesser and Person, 1994), feedback (Chi et al., 2001), questions (Lehnert, 1978; Lang et al., 1992), and scaffolding behaviours (Chi et al., 2001). Each code was classified as KT or KB. Appendix B provides the list of codes and their classifications. For example, behaviours in which tutors provided elaboration onto confirmatory feedback was coded as KB feedback, as this involves further construction of knowledge (Graesser et al., 1995), while unelaborated feedback (e.g., ‘you are correct’) was coded as KT feedback since it did not require more explicit construction (Roscoe, 2007). However, some behaviours could not be characterised as KB or KT (Appendix B3), such as common ground questions, which ask how well the tutee has understood or could follow the material (Graesser and Person, 1994). Moreover, explanations and elaborated feedback were further categorized as conceptual, procedural, factual, and bridging (Appendix B4). For example, statements are considered as procedural if tutors engage students with algorithmic steps for problem-solving (Fuchs et al., 1994). In contrast, bridging statements are coded if tutors connect procedural statements to conceptual underpinnings of the material. Videos were coded by two researchers to address reliability.
Inter-rater reliability for interviews and observations were measured using pooled kappa (de Vries et al., 2008). A pooled kappa above 0.80 was achieved for both sets of data.
Tutor | Types of tutor behaviour | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Explanation (%) | Feedback (%) | Question (%) | Metacognition (%) | Scaffolding (%) | Other behaviours (%) | |
Chuck | 27 ± 17 | 28 ± 11 | 24 ± 5 | 6 ± 3 | 8 ± 5 | 7 ± 5 |
Patricia | 53 ± 5 | 9 ± 3 | 2 ± 1 | 29 ± 8 | 4 ± 4 | 2 ± 1 |
Trent | 27 ± 6 | 32 ± 5 | 9 ± 3 | 12 ± 5 | 18 ± 5 | 2 ± 1 |
Tutor | Tutee(s) | Subject | Session | Topics |
---|---|---|---|---|
Chuck | 1 male | General chemistry | C1 | Molecular geometry, Lewis structures, polarity |
C2 | Molecular geometry, Lewis structures, hybridisation | |||
C3 | Phase diagrams, crystal structures | |||
Patricia | 1 male | General chemistry | P1 | Ideal gases |
P2 | Molecular orbital theory | |||
P3 | Molecular geometry | |||
Trent | 2 females | Organic chemistry | T1 | No specific topics |
T2 | ||||
T3 | ||||
T4 |
Chuck: “If it's like a low-requirement, like just like a pre-requirement for their degree, then just get through the class. If they're a chem major, get them to understand it.”
He thought that tutors should provide students with different approaches to solving problems, make them comfortable with the material so that they may be able to work on their own, and help them develop an appreciation of the content:
Chuck: “hopefully, they're comfortable with the material they're expected to know, you know, for their final, and … I guess kind of appreciate it, you know, know why we're doing it, why it's important…”
He asserted that he was also there to answer his tutees' questions and thought that tutees may improve their performance on exams by reproducing the skills learned during tutoring sessions.
Chuck: “I mean the person just, you know, gets to a point where I don't really have to explain much 'cause I like it when people really understand things … either that or have them, not understand something but then kind of find their way with … little … guidance; … kinda have them realize it's not that bad to guess and then figure it out, you know? So it's kind of one where I'm not as … involved, kinda have them … figure it out and realize for themselves that it's not really that bad.”
These characteristics of effective tutoring somewhat align with his perceptions of the purpose of tutoring, with regards to developing the tutee's autonomy.
Chuck: “I tell them, even if you think it's a stupid question, it's OK to ask; I mean, I'm, like, you hired me for a reason, I'm here, you know, to answer your questions. I'm hoping that I'm easy to talk to and they're not, I guess, afraid of sounding stupid.”
Other characteristics of a good tutor according to Chuck included being knowledgeable of the content and flexible with scheduling. Interestingly, he highlighted how limited understanding of the content can become problematic when tutoring. In particular, he explained that he may not be able to implement one of his instructional strategies, i.e. showing different problem solving approaches, with content he is uncomfortable with:
Chuck: “Some things are more difficult to explain, something that I probably, you know, don't understand as well as other things; … it's known as a challenge 'cause you might not know as many different ways to teach it. You might have learned it one way, but it's all you know…so it will be more difficult [to come up with other approaches].”
His conversational dominance and the type of behaviours he enacted varied from session to session (Table 2). During the first session (C1), Chuck dominated the conversation. He was teaching his tutee about molecular geometry and hybridisation through examples. He walked through all possible molecular geometries of each electronic geometry up to octahedral by asking the tutee to go through the same sequence of steps for each example: the tutee is first asked to draw Lewis structures (counting valence electrons, calculating formal charges, finding electron configurations, filling in orbitals, and identifying geometry) and then determine the hybridisation of the central and outer atoms (promote electrons, identify and count sigma/pi bonds, combine/draw orbitals). This session includes a mixture of explanations, close-ended questions (KT under questions and common ground questions), and elaborated feedback (KB under feedback), all from Chuck (Fig. 2). Most explanations and elaborated feedback in this session are factual and procedural (Fig. 3).
![]() | ||
Fig. 3 Types of explanations and elaborated feedback provided by Chuck during each tutoring session. ‘Exp’ and ‘Elab’ represent explanations (KT and KB) and elaborated feedback (KB), respectively. |
In the second session, Chuck asked his tutee to solve the molecular geometries of several structures. Compared to C1, he was behaving as a guide on the side in C2 as demonstrated by the drop of conversational dominance from 87% in C1 to 69% in C2 as well as the sharp decrease in the number of explanations (from 24% in C1 to 12% in C2) and increase in feedback (from 30% in C1 to 38% in C2). Moreover, the majority of feedback is unelaborated (Fig. 2). Chuck's explanations and elaborated feedback are largely focused on helping the tutee understand the concepts behind the process of determining molecular geometry as demonstrated by the high proportion of bridging explanations/elaborations (Fig. 3). The following excerpt provides an example of this focus on conceptual understanding:
Chuck: So (the hybridisation of those bonds) would be?
Tutee: That would be pi.
Chuck: Pi bonds, right. So this means that, since we have 3 sigma bonds, they'll be equivalent, right, so that's why here we made 4 sp3 hybrids, because those are all the same types of bonds.
The third session addressed new topics that were independent of the topics covered during the first two sessions (Table 3). In this session, Chuck largely dominated the conversation (Fig. 2). He took on a lecture approach as demonstrated by the larger percentage of explanations, limited feedback, and larger proportion of common ground questions (Fig. 2); most explanations and feedback contained factual information (Fig. 3).
First, his perceptions that the purpose of tutoring and his role as a tutor are to promote tutees' conceptual understanding were not fully reflected in his behaviours. Conceptual explanations and bridges between concepts and procedures comprised less than half of the explanations and elaborated feedback across all tutoring sessions (Fig. 3).
Second, although he made the assertions that tutors should be adaptive with their instruction and that tutoring should allow students to approach problems from different angles, his instructional tactics did not support these assertions. This was evident in C1 and C2, in which the tutee was given similar molecular geometry questions to solve using the same method. On the other end, this strategy was aligned with his perception that students' abilities to repeat skills learned during tutoring sessions will lead to higher performance on exam. He may thus intentionally use the same approach to ensure that the tutee is able to reproduce it on an exam.
Third, the change in Chuck's approach in C3 seems to be influenced by weaknesses in his understanding of the materials. In C1 and C2, Chuck demonstrated command of the materials: he provided problems for his tutee to solve, and clear explanations without hesitations:
Chuck: (regarding AX5 geometry) Because, think of it as like steric, the things are like squished, so we remove one that would give us the most space in return. Right, so in here, you look at the picture, they remove the top one, right, because there's, um, there's 90 degrees right here, so that's the one that's the closest to it, right, so that would remove the top one first. (C1)
However, in C3, he defaulted to a lecture-style instruction, did not provide problems, and commented, on several occasions, about his lack of understanding certain aspects of the materials:
Chuck: “Yeah, I don't know if I can really explain this one to you to be honest”
He also seemed to have difficulties providing explanations:
Chuck: “So if you want, you can actually figure out this 52%, right, so let's say you have a box, give the box a dimension, right, you know, call it, like, one. Then, express the cube, express the sphere as a, you know, a function of it, right? So if you look at this one, right, uh…this might actually be pretty, I'm a little bit rusty on the, on the, uh, on the actual packing efficiency of the, the volume occupied, again if you break it down, you can figure it out.”
These behaviours are aligned with his description of the role of content knowledge mastery and tutoring: a tutor with limited content knowledge may not be able to provide the tutee with different explanations or approaches to solving problems.
Patricia: “I think tutoring is … not teaching, but telling what you know and to the, to the student, or to another person who doesn't know much more than you. I think it's not teaching, but something, uh, something like you know something, you know more things than the other person and just telling them.”
Second, by providing guidance and validation to students on their ways of thinking about the content:
Patricia: “… sometimes that means they don't, um, that doesn't mean they don't know the thing, but they have a different idea, but they don't know whether they should, so they will exchange ideas to, tell you, uh, how I can do this, whether I can do this, it's right or wrong, so sometimes I'll exchange my ideas to them.”
She also mentioned that her role is to assist with students' homework and laboratory reports.
Patricia: “I have 2 students, one is a Chinese student, and one is not American, but I don't know what's the nationality of the student. So, I, for the Chinese student, I know that, in China, they just teach us directly, so they don't ask them questions, um, so I always, I just teach them how to do this. But for the other student, I always ask them questions to let them think. Because I think they can know, they can figure out by themselves, if I can give them some suggestions, some hints for the questions, so I always teach them different ways.”
Patricia: “I think sometimes they can teach me some things, I, you know, someone has, everyone has their own ideas, but they should learn something new from others, so they always give me some ideas, which way I can teach in, uh, other lab or recitation.”
Finally, she indicated that effective tutoring encourages students to understand the knowledge rather than relying on memorization:
Patricia: “I think the student … remembers these formulas … these definitions, but they can't use these definitions or formulas to their questions. So I think a good tutoring is to let them learn, not remember.”
![]() | ||
Fig. 5 Types of explanations and elaborated feedback provided by Patricia during each tutoring session. ‘Exp’ and ‘Elab’ represent explanations (KT and KB) and elaborated feedback (KB), respectively. |
The other dominant type of behaviour, metacognition, was dominant by a specific subtype, i.e. calls to attention, which accounted for 16%, 19%, and 26% of all behaviours observed in P1, P2, and P3 respectively. These calls to attention often referred to what ‘they,’ the problem- or exam-writers, may require the students to know, such as the values of STP, or perform, such as writing electron configurations. Although these instances of behaviours were not interactive in nature, these may still be considered as KB behaviours as these require tutors to evaluate and make judgments on what they deem as important information (Roscoe, 2007).
Apart from behaviours illustrated in Fig. 4, Patricia assigned quizzes to her tutee in P1 and P2. However, she provided limited feedback on the tutee's performance in each quiz. For example, after completion of the quiz in P1, Patricia does not confirm whether the tutee was correct or not, instead moving into an explanation on how to solve the gas law problems.
Interestingly, she had mentioned in her interview that she adapted her instructional style to her perceptions of her tutees' instructional preferences. In particular, she had indicated that since Chinese students are often taught directly, she typically told them about the materials rather than asking them questions. The tutee in these sessions was Chinese and thus her behaviours reflected these perceptions. Although there was little behavioural evidence in this study that supported her perceptions of the tutoring role as interactive, this should not be taken as evidence against her perceptions of interactive peer tutoring since we were not able to observe her with tutees from other nationalities.
Trent: “I think that we should be trying to achieve with them ultimately learning how to review the material correctly, how to study for something and ultimately just to pick up some of these concepts because some of them are important and they will become important in classes that they will take in the future.”
Trent felt that his role was to address the tutee's questions by providing examples and problems related to the object of confusion for them to work on. Through the process of solving these new problems, the tutor can identify the tutee's strengths and weaknesses and help them developed the latter. He felt strongly, however, that it was the responsibility of the tutee to identify their questions as the following interview excerpt illustrates:
Trent: “But ultimately they [tutors] are just there to answer a question and it's all up to the tutee to guide where they need help because as a tutor you don't have time to observe them and watch them do your homework and so it's up to them, that a little bit of extra effort and say “we get this. I need more practice on this, can you help me with this example.”
Trent: “I guess a good tutoring session is one in which the student is prepared because if they're not prepared, it really bogs down your time because they're like 'well I just need my answers' on a homework […] so, a good characteristic of a tutor session then would be, uh, lots of questions. And so they're asking questions, their curiosity sparked, you're really getting the juices flowing, so to speak, and they really are interested in what's going on, and they wanna learn more.”
The nature of the questions provided by the tutees led Trent to use different types of explanations and elaborated feedback (Fig. 7). During the first two sessions, tutees were mostly requesting help on various types of procedures: how to use the IUPAC nomenclature (T1), draw Newman projections (T1), to draw chair conformations (T1), calculate free energy (T2), and interpret spectra (T2). However, in the last two sessions, they requested help on concepts: how to determine if something is a good nucleophile (T3), determine minor and major products of a reaction (T3, T4), and to stabilize a carbocation with hydride and methyl shifts (T3); they also asked Trent to provide an overview of substitution and elimination reactions (T4). This shift from procedural to conceptual requests is reflected by the shift from procedural to conceptual explanations and elaborated feedback provided by Trent (Fig. 7).
All three tutors characterised good tutees as students who come prepared to the session, having identified the help they need. Trent and Chuck highlighted that students should not expect to have the tutor do their assignments for them. Patricia was unique in identifying that tutees have different instructional preferences.
They described differently the characteristics of an effective tutoring session. Patricia and Trent preferred interactive sessions in which tutee and tutor are constantly exchanging questions, answers or ideas. Chuck, on the other end, described an effective session as one where the tutee makes progress under limited guidance from the tutor.
Finally, the characteristics of an effective tutor that Patricia, Chuck and Trent provided all related to their character: they felt that an effective tutor is approachable, knowledgeable, and communicate well. Trent and Patricia added they should be interested in the tutee's success. Patricia was the only tutor who provided pedagogical characteristics: an effective tutor should monitor their tutee's progress and have them solve problems on their own first.
Claim 1: Tutors' perceptions of their tutee were related to their instructional behaviours. Chuck and Patricia's behaviours during their tutoring sessions can be explained by statements about their tutee made during the interview. Patricia's didactic approach can be directly connected to her statement about preferences of Chinese students for expository teaching style. Even though she recognized during the interview that this approach is not the most effective, it seems that she valued more her perceptions of her tutee's preferred instructional style. Chuck indicated during this interview that he adapted his approach to his tutee's reasons for taking the course: if the tutee takes the course as a general education requirement, the focus is on passing the course while if the tutee majors in the course, the focus is on developing understanding. His tutee fits into the former and Chuck focused the first two sessions on drills with a clear goal for the tutee to be able to replicate these drills on an exam. He did not provide different approaches to solving these problems neither conceptual explanations even though he described these behaviours as part of his role as a tutor. For both of these tutors, their perceptions of their tutees outweighed their perceptions of effective practices and influenced their behaviours during the sessions. In both cases, it led to more KT behaviours than would be expected from their descriptions of effective tutoring behaviours.
Claim 2: Tutors' perceptions of their role as tutor were related to their instructional behaviours. All three tutors saw their role differently: Patricia described her role as a dispenser of knowledge (e.g., telling them what they should know and lecturing about content they are confused about), Chuck as a skill builder (e.g., providing various problem strategies, working toward developing their autonomy) and Trent as a consultant (e.g., answering tutee's questions). These different perceptions are connected to their carrying out of the tutoring sessions: Patricia lectured, Chuck provided teacher-centred training, and Trent provided scaffolded explanations. It thus seems that inquiring about one's perception of their role as a tutor can provide insight into their enacted tutoring approach.
A second limitation of this study, which is typical of case studies, is that the findings may not be easily generalizable since the data set is too small to empirically represent what may be observed in a larger population (Hodkinson and Hodkinson, 2001), even one as limited as chemistry graduate students working as peer tutors. However, the behaviours and perceptions of tutoring observed in this study have been observed in other studies, regardless of the exact nature of peer tutoring. The tutors' perceptions of tutoring is supported by the literature, while similar predominance of KT behaviours observed in this study have been observed in Bailey's study of ‘learning centre’ and ‘academic department’ chemistry tutors (2010) and in Berghmans et al.'s study of mathematics tutors (2013). Thus, this study fulfils the function of “offer(ing) important evidence to complement experiments”, as asserted by Yin (2009, p. 16), expanding the literature and theories of tutor perceptions and behaviour as well as demonstrating relationships between them.
Footnote |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c5rp00103j |
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015 |