Learning from human tutoring

Abstract

Human one-to-one tutoring has been shown to be a very effective form of instruction. Three contrasting hypotheses, a tutor-centered one, a student-centered one, and an interactive one could all potentially explain the effectiveness of tutoring. To test these hypotheses, analyses focused not only on the effectiveness of the tutors' moves, but also on the effectiveness of the students' construction on learning, as well as their interaction. The interaction hypothesis is further tested in the second study by manipulating the kind of tutoring tactics tutors were permitted to use. In order to promote a more interactive style of dialogue, rather than a didactic style, tutors were suppressed from giving explanations and feedback. Instead, tutors were encouraged to prompt the students. Surprisingly, students learned just as effectively even when tutors were suppressed from giving explanations and feedback. Their learning in the interactive style of tutoring is attributed to construction from deeper and a greater amount of scaffolding episodes, as well as their greater effort to take control of their own learning by reading more. What they learned from reading was limited, however, by their reading abilities.

The effect of directive tutor guidance on students' conceptual understanding of statistics in problem‐based learning

“…It was expected that the intervention would enhance students' conceptual understanding of the subject matter, because students would be provoked to focus on and actively think about the subject matter. Several studies have shown these positive effects of asking questions (Chi, Siler, Jeong, Yamauchi, & Hausman, 2001;Glaser, 1991;Graesser, Baggett, & Williams, 1996;Graesser, Person, & Magliano, 1995). The guiding questions also had a metacognitive component, because the students became more aware of their own learning (Boekaerts, 1997;Schraw, Crippen, & Hartley, 2006;Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006).…”

The effect of guiding questions on students’ performance and attitude towards statistics

“…Stimulating or prompting self-explanations increases cognitive activity. Relevant cognitive activity promotes the construction of coherent knowledge structures, which enhances understanding of the subject matter and performance of the learner (Chi, 1996;Chi, Siler, Jeong, Yamauchi, & Hausman, 2001). Such relevant cognitive activity increases germane CL and can only be accomplished when the total CL does not lead to an overload of the limited cognitive system.…”

“…Human tutors can also guide student reasoning. By means of successive dialogue exchanges between the tutor and the students, and by focussing students' attention, the tutor can scaffold the construction of self-explanations, which in turn promotes learning (Chi, 1996;Chi et al, 2001;Merrill, Reiser, Merrill, & Landes, 1995;Merrill, Reiser, Ranney, & Trafton, 1992). The intervention with the directive questions mimicked human tutors who guide student reasoning, because it focused students' attention and was expected to elicit self-explanations.…”

An agenda for neuroeducation: relating psychophysiological and behavioral data across time scales of learning

“…PBL is widely used worldwide in higher education, particularly in medical education. The causes of this efficacy pertaining to the interaction are still intricate and can involve the tutor's initiative, the learners' initiative, or their joint initiative (Chi, Siler, Jeong, Yamauchi, & Hausmann, 2001). Answers to a vast quantity of critical questions including the following cannot be obtained by relying only on conversational data: How accurate is the teacher monitoring of students' learning state?…”