Physics Tutors' Planned Strategy Use for Conceptual and Procedural Problems: Encouraging and Puzzling Results

• In Event: Learning Environments as Nurturing Spaces for the STEM Disciplines

Abstract

Students in one-on-one tutoring learn best when tutors elicit their constructive responses to scaffold them. Tutors’ non-eliciting explanations, in contrast, seem to be less beneficial for learning. Usually, tutors use less eliciting strategies than would be optimal. They, however, seem to use more eliciting in procedural domains (e.g., mathematics) than in conceptual domains (e.g., biology). Contrary to results from observations of tutoring, physics university students in our study planned to use predominantly eliciting strategies. Moreover, tutors tended to plan more non-eliciting strategies with procedural learning goals and more eliciting strategies with conceptual goals. The results are encouraging in terms of tutors’ understanding of quality tutoring and raise new questions about the relationships between the focus of tutoring and tutors’ actions.

Authors

• Stephanie Herppich, University of Freiburg

• Tim Steininger, University of Freiburg

• Joerg Wittwer, University of Freiburg