Note:This is a short initial literature review that will be expanded during the write-up phase of this project.
This project is part of research into two related and frequently overlapping topic areas in SoTL: “Oxbridge” tutorials and “small-group teaching”. The purpose of this project is to assess the effectiveness and viability of small-group teaching as an alternate format for instruction in the Core Division. In a larger sense, however, the goal of this project is to consider the viability and relevance of tutorial/small-group teaching in “post-pandemic education”, a time when, I believe, colleges will be increasingly challenged by students and parents to offer a more compelling “value proposition” for traditional four-year residential educational programs. I believe that tutorial/small-group education has the potential to be part of that value proposition.
Below is a very preliminary review of the most readily available literature in this area, with much more to come this summer when I have time to analyze my data and dig more deeply into the subject.
Tutorials are a renowned part of the curriculum at elite educational institutions in the US and UK. The classic tutorial format, and the format in which I participated most as a graduate student, involves a “tutor” meeting with one or two students, though in recent decades, due to budget constraints, the number of students in a tutorial has increased in some instances. There are a number of resources relating to the process and intended role of tutorials in students’ Oxford education. Student-facing resources include the “Yellow Book” published by the Archaeology and Anthropology Department at the University of Oxford; faculty-facing resources include this collection of tutorial teaching guides available through the website of the University of Oxford Centre for Teaching and Learning.
In the Spring of 2007, a conference titled “Tutorial Education: History, Pedagogy, and Evolution” was held at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. Two excellent papers from this conference are Mayr-Harting, “Oxford Tutorials” and Beck, “Towards a Pedagogy of the Oxford Tutorial” (both 2007).
The Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies has published a compilation of papers called the “Oxford Tutorial: ‘Thanks, You Taught Me How to Think’”, edited by David Palfreyman (2008).
Paul Ashwin has published two separate articles analyzing interviews about tutorial experiences with students and faculty, respectively: “Variation in Students’ Experiences of the ‘Oxford Tutorial’” (Higher Education, 2005); “Variation in Academics’ Accounts of Tutorials” (Higher Education, 2006).
An article published by M.T.H. Chi in 1996 did not name tutorials explicitly but uses a case study to explore what aspects of tutor/tutee interactions contribute to learning in one-to-one interactions. (“Constructing Self-Explanations and Scaffolded Explanations in Tutoring”, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 1996). Another article that considers the use of tutorials in STEM teaching is Jaworski, “Sensitivity and Challenge in University Mathematics Tutorial Teaching” (Educational Studies in Mathematics, 2002).
In “Critical Thinking in the Oxford Tutorial: A Call for an Explicit and Systematic Approach” (Higher Education Research & Development, 2011), Ruth Cosgrove summarizes a study focusing on the extent to which the Oxford tutorial promotes the development of “critical thinking” in students.
J. Horn explores the Oxford tutorial as a “signature pedagogy” of teaching in the humanities in “Signature Pedagogy/Powerful Pedagogy: The Oxford Tutorial System in the Humanities” (Arts and Humanities in HIgher Education, 2013).
Only a few American colleges and universities offer tutorials. These include Williams College, which has received coverage on its tutorial program in the Chronicle of Higher Education at least twice: Watkins, “Williams College Offers Oxford-Style Tutorials in 27 Subjects” (1989) and Smallwood, “Me and My Professor” (2002).
In the medical field and STEM subjects, a fair amount of research has been done on what is called “small-group teaching”. Literature on this subject includes Mills and Alexander, “Small Group Teaching: A Toolkit for Learning” (Higher Education Academy, 2013); Steinert, “Student Perceptions of Effective Small Group Teaching” (Medical Education, 2004) and “Twelve Tips for effective Small Group Teaching in the Health Professions” (Medical Teacher, 1996); Pesce and Orsini, “Student Experiences of Two Small Group Teaching Formats: Seminar and Fishbowl” (European Journal of Dental Education, 2018); Mir et al, “A practical approach for successful small group teaching in medical schools with student centered curricula” (Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism, 2019); Hölzer et al, “Faculty Development for Small-Group-Teaching with Simulated Patients (SP) - Design and Evaluation of a Competency-Based Workshop” (GMS Journal for Medical Education, 2017); and Fryer-Edwards et al, “Reflective Teaching Practices: An Approach to Teaching Communication Skills in a Small Group Setting” (Academic Medicine, 2006).
A more general examination of small-group teaching, in which student interviews were used to identify tutorial teaching approaches and their capacity to promote personal understanding, is Karagiannopoulou and Entwistle, “Students’ Learning Characteristics, Perceptions of Small-Group University Teaching, and Understanding Through a ‘Meeting of Minds’” (Frontiers in Psychology, 2019).
Two of the most interesting articles on the subject of small-group teaching relate to the potential for small group teaching to increase the academic success and retention of minority students. These are: Treisman, “Studying Students Studying Calculus: A Look at the Lives of Minority Mathematics Students in College” (College Mathematics Journal, 1992), and Su Swarat et al, “Opening the Gateway: Increasing Minority Retention in Introductory Science Courses” (Journal of Science Teaching, 2004).