Select tutors with adequate content expertise and prepare all tutors in cognitive and social congruence, on the job¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 against) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The authors draw practical implications for staffing problem-based curricula from their finding that student and staff tutors behave differently. For selection, they recommend employing tutors only in units where they have adequate content expertise; for preparation, they recommend training that develops cognitive and social congruence, conducted on the job with preparatory meetings using the actual course problems, plus regular peer communication among tutors about how they help students overcome cognitive obstacles. As they write, "With respect to selection, the school only should employ tutors in units in which they have an adequate level of content expertise. With respect to the preparation of tutors, more attention should be given to cognitive and social congruence."

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Preparatory meetings in which tutors work with the actual problems to be presented to students
• Regular communication among tutors while working on the job about succeeding or failing in helping students overcome cognitive obstacles

Constraints¶

• Grounded in a study of first-year law courses at one faculty using post-hoc student questionnaires

Target Learners¶

• first-year university students in problem-based tutorial groups

Target Learning Goals¶

• effective facilitation of student learning processes in small-group problem-based learning

Affordances¶

• Six Component Tutor Behavior Framework

Claims¶

• Prior field experiments found no achievement differences between staff- and student-tutored groups [-W]
• Staff tutors display more authoritarian behavior than student tutors in problem-based tutorial groups [+W]
• Student tutors show greater role congruence, being more interested in students' daily lives and study experiences [+W]
• Student tutors are rated as more cognitively congruent than staff tutors in problem-based tutorial groups [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Provide tutors 20 hours of pre-service training plus ongoing weekly coaching and professional development
• Train paraprofessionals to deliver Sound Partners lessons using a local trainer plus manual and video-based professional development

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Moust, J. C. & Schmidt, H. G. (1995). Facilitating small-group learning: a comparison of student and staff tutors' behavior. Instructional Science 22: 287-301. https://link.springer.com/journal/11251