Role of Tutors in Further and Higher Education

Over the years, many educationalists (Dewey 1958, MacGurie 1966, Bramley 1977, Tough 1971, Moore 1973, Sheehan 1981, Knowles 1980, Gagne 1977, Quinn 1989, Earwaker 1992, Peelo 1994) have provided literature, discussing the roles and responsibilities of a teacher. Some of their work will be reviewed in this section. Dewey (1938) explained that the teacher needs to be aware of the capacity, needs and past experiences of the students so that she can make suggestions for learning. The teacher should use the environment and experience to promote learning, as well as select activities, which will encourage learners to organise knowledge and gain from the experience. The teacher needs to look ahead to see the direction in which the learning experience is leading the student, to ensure that the learning experiences are conducive to continued personal and professional growth and development of the learner.

According to Tough (1971 cited by Moore 1973 pp 670) the teacher is a helper, whose function is ‘providing information, advice (or suggestions and recommendations), and reasons that help the learner to make the decisions and understand the reasons for it.’  The helper provides detailed information about the various possibilities that are open to the learner, but lets the learner himself make the decisions. While the tutor facilitates and guides learning, she should not interfere with, nor control the process of learning (Dewey cited by Jarvis 1992) as the learner can obtain a great deal of help without giving up control or responsibility to the teacher. This is very evident in the Inquiry Based Learning approach.

The need for an adult learner to maintain control over own learning has been emphasised by Knowles (1980) in his model of andragogy as discussed in an earlier blog. Perraton (1981 pp 14 - 15) concurs with this concept, as he states that 'learning is more effective if, through dialogue between student and teacher, the student can be shown how the new matter he is learning relates to what he already knows, and relates to his environment.' Understanding of this relevance is based on individual perception, so this 'dialogue' may have to be, often, carried out between personal tutor and student, so that the student understands the relevance of the curriculum to their chosen profession / career.

As Lewis (1984) proposed, this allows the tutor to recognise the support the learner may need. The tutor is responsible for assessing the individual’s strengths and weaknesses (Keegan 1980). She will follow the student throughout the course, be available for consultation, hold tutorials and maintain a record of progress. These are similar to the responsibilities of the facilitator in the IBL process. Hiyola & Moss (1989) point out, that the tutor's role encompasses:

*             Tutoring, that is related to academic problems of learners;

*             Tutoring oriented to general study skills;

*             Dealing with general problems which arise from students working with the educational    system and

*             Counselling of students.

However, the term counselling can be misleading, as this is not a therapeutic situation but an advisory role. The former is a service provided by student services.  The success of the role would therefore appear to be based on a good interpersonal relationship between the student and the personal tutor. Quinn (1995) cites Nelson-Jones (1993) in describing the term counselling as a helping relationship, a set of activities and methods, and a special area for providing services. This encompasses the development of a non-threatening relationship which will enable the student to discuss his / her problem, so that the tutor can help the student to explore solutions to it.

Bramley (1977, pp 21) states ‘The essence of personal tutoring is good teaching - exciting, mind-expanding teaching .......... it is safe to assume that an inspired, committed teacher will, through his teaching, spark off a warm response in most of his students. It is the reciprocity of feeling, which marks the beginning, middle and end of personal tutoring.’ The teacher will be successful in her role, if she is able to establish a good interpersonal relationship with the learner (Bruner 1968, Dallos 1984, Quinn 1989) by maintaining a two-way communication (Wedemeyer 1977, Baath 1979, Tough 1979, Perraton 1981, Rumble 1989) and being genuine in her transactions (Bramley 1977). There must be mutual understanding and acceptance (Dallos 1984) so that the student is able to relax and have total confidence in their tutor (Peelo 1994). Tough (1979) is of the opinion, that to establish and maintain a good relationship, the teacher has to:

•             be warm and loving;

•             have confidence in the learner's ability;

•             always be prepared to enter in a genuine dialogue with the learner; and

•             have a strong motivation to help and be an open and growing person.

Riseborough (1994) agrees with Tough (1979) in stating that a good relationship increases motivation and confidence in students. Peelo (1994) explains that the tutor helps the student to define her situation, by listening with care and kindness, in a quiet peaceful atmosphere, so that the student gets an impression of warmth and kindness. The importance of this quality of warmth and genuineness is also emphasised by Moore (1973), Nyirenda (1989), Rogers (1986), and Perraton (1984).

While the nature of the relationship and the contribution of the tutor to the relationship have been discussed, consideration also needs to be given to the role of the student within this relationship. The student is responsible for making appointments with her tutor, to avail necessary tutorial support. However, it appears that the onus of establishing the relationship and creating the appropriate environment, appears to be on the tutor even while equality within the relationship is being advocated by educationalists like Bramley (1977, pp 15) “a sense of belonging, growing out of shared beliefs and endeavours, which turns eventually into comradeship.”

Another issue important to the relationship is confidentiality (Peelo 1994). She states that being able to communicate freely comes from the knowledge that you can say anything to the tutor and be assured that it will not become public knowledge. Therefore, guaranteed of confidentiality, the student will be able to discuss their hopes, fears, failures, doubts, and anxieties.

While explaining the role of the personal tutor within general education, Bramley (1977) states that “personal tutoring is an attitude, not a set of prescriptions” (pp 21). The students have freedom to develop their academic abilities. Peelo (1994) holds the view that the role of the tutor is to support and help students to develop their confidence in their academic work and in fulfilling personal ambitions. This can be achieved by suggesting varying studying techniques to build personal approach to study, thus allowing the student to develop an ‘academic identity’ without ‘compromising the student’s autonomy’ (pp. 3).

However, within professional education the students along with achievement of academic standards also have to develop and maintain professional standards, which have been stipulated by the professional body for the safety of the public. The understanding of the curriculum and the relevance of the subjects studied will improve the motivation of students and help to maintain professional standards, which underpin the curriculum. The extent of guidance required by student changes as the student develops increasing expertise, as the course progresses. Quinn (1995) therefore, feels that the role of the tutor will also change in the same vein, as the student becomes more independent.

According to Quinn (1989 pp 414) the role of the personal tutor comprises of :

•             encouraging and supporting

•             informing and advising

•             monitoring and coaching / counselling

•             liasing and representing

•             negotiating

•             record keeping and references

•             as well as disciplining.

Bewley (1995) feels that it is essential for students to have a personal tutor, who will be able to provide individualised support to the student. This is confirmed by the findings of Richardson (1996) that a personal tutor is the first stop for a student who wants help. Similarly Earwaker (1992) states that pastoral care and one to one contact will provide personal attention.

The tutor is a learning resource for the students, who will inform and advise students regarding their course work and assessment (Quinn 1995). The tutor monitors the progress of the student, by liaising with other staff members during the course and gives feedback to the student. This allows the tutor to give remedial or additional teaching, if required. One of the ways of doing this is through negotiated learning contracts (Keyzer 1986, Riseborough 1994) with the student. The use of learning contracts should enable the students to become independent and self-directed in their studies as well as become reflective practitioners (Crotty 1993). The earlier mentioned ‘dialogue’ between student and tutor can be used to reflect on student experiences, both academic and practical.

As Kolb (1984) clarifies reflection is not a new concept, but the use of an appropriate reflective cycle is essential to maintain and improve standards of clinical practice.  Schon (1983) points out reflection can be in action and on action. The former is the reflection carried out as the behaviour is taking place, to decide the next action, while the latter is carried out in retrospect, where actions are reviewed along with the underpinning knowledge. The personal tutor can assist the student in carrying out this reflection on action, and to complete the learning log, that is often a part of the practical assessment. This, according to Gallego and Walter (1991, cited by Newton and Smith 1998) enables the personal tutor to facilitate students in bridging the theory practice gap, so that the student becomes an autonomous, accountable professional.

The tutor needs to be aware of her own strengths and weaknesses. Certainly the tutor is unlikely to be a specialist in every subject that the student is undertaking. She should therefore, be able to give guidance and direction to the student regarding the resources available and their appropriate and effective use. “Personal tutor is responsible for keeping a watchful eye on the student’s work and progress on an individual basis.” (Earwaker 1992, pp. 45 - 46)

The role of the personal tutor also includes record keeping through student profiling, which embodies ‘a wide range and diverse range of assessments of knowledge, skills and experiences.’ (Miller 1982, cited by Quinn 1995, pp. 204) The advantages of profiling as discussed by Hitchcock (1990) are as follows :

•             Recording of student progress with emphasises on achievements and thereby providing students with motivation.

•             To maintain records, the tutor and student require one to one communication. This also encourages the development of relationship between the two.

•             The improved relationship and close interaction facilitates pastoral care, as and when appropriate.

•             It also enables the tutor to identify the learning needs of each student.

•             The record keeping and profiling allow the tutor to provide end of course references.

Despite the obvious advantages there are some limitations to this role. Studies carried out by Earwaker (1989a, b) in general education clearly identify the confusion and uncertainty tutors feel regarding this supporting role, despite having strong commitment to their learners. Another aspect revealed by this study was the large number of students each tutor had to provide support to, some as much as over 100 students! Only a small number of tutors were providing this support. This high student tutor ratio made the staff feel burdened by this role. The students’ needs ranged from:

Minor problems like:

•             adjusting to the course

•             clarification of procedural matters

To major problems like:

•             serious medical conditions

•             relationship problems and

•             sometimes psychological problems.

So there is a need to distinguish between the role of the tutor from that of the counsellor.

Other findings of Earwaker (1992) indicate that some tutors are seen to be approachable, while others are reluctant to get involved in student’s personal problems. A number of tutors feel that they are sometimes overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems brought to them. Though some tutors were seen to be self-aware regarding lack of appropriate skills, they were not keen to take up appropriate training due to existing pressure of work. Another unfortunate aspect is that, the supporting role is viewed by staff to be inferior to the academic role, as it did not appear to be valued by the institution. Supporting role of the tutor was seen as ‘a career cul-de-sac’ (Earwaker 1992, pp. 50) for their promotion in the academic world would be adversely effected if they seriously applied their supporting role, and would fall behind in research and consultancy which are the performance indicators of academia. Earwaker’s (1992) work clearly indicates that tutors wished for clear guidelines regarding this supporting role. Many tutors had an ‘open door’ policy to allow students easy access, which would take up time, making it difficult to function.

Therefore, the tutors who can give up some other responsibility will be the ones who can carry on providing the required level of support through ‘open door’ policy, while others will be unable or unwilling to do the same. Yet within Higher Education, the personal student – tutor relationship is attributed by characteristics of:

•             flexibility,

•             individual attention and

•             pastoral concern.

Therefore, there is a mismatch between what higher education states is the role of the personal tutor and the actual provision of this service to the student. To provide the service, as discussed earlier, there needs to be sufficient time available to the tutor. With increasing demands being made on tutor time and the need for raising student number puts tremendous strain on the tutor. If the system is based on the premise that all students are adults and should be allowed the freedom to learn, as Rogers (1983) clearly states, and identify their own needs, the responsibility of maintaining the relationship should be the student’s rather than the tutor’s. Some of these concerns can be met with the implementation of the IBL approach to learning and teaching as the facilitator also acts as the personal tutor for the group of around 15 students.

Greenwood (1993) has cautioned against reflection on action as the situation, as well as the articulation, of the conceptual models maybe distorted by the student. They may articulate what they assume the tutor wishes to hear and therefore lead to superficial reflection. Earwaker (1992) goes on to state that there may be role strain with the tutor supporting the student and being the advocate as well as trying to up hold the standards of the profession that she is trying to impart to her students. Therefore, it has been suggested that it would be better if the personal tutor is not involved in the assessment of the students. But in reality this is not possible. Despite the earlier discussion in this section, regarding the nature of the student – tutor relationship, Earwaker (1992) feels that realistically this relationship cannot be based on equal terms as each occupies a specific role – the tutor who is presumed to know things that the students do not know as yet. Therefore, the meeting between the two is based generally on the understanding that the tutor will:

•             offer advice,

•             give guidance,

•             provide support to the student, and

•             make the relationship a working one.

The tutor can find it difficult to maintain this responsibility of forming relationship as she will have many students to cater for and that not all students will be responsive or willing to form the relationship. This can be true particularly of mature students who have a whole support network outside of the university and may only require academic support.

Earwaker (1992) gives the opinion that personal tutoring as a role, falls in the middle ground between counselling and interviewing as it is appropriate to draw on skills from both areas to fulfil the role. It must be remembered that a student may not want a close relationship and may not wish to discuss personal problems with the personal tutor, because by confiding in the personal tutor, the student becomes vulnerable to her. To redress this, the personal tutor may have to be willing to show her own vulnerability to the student. This can be achieved by referring sparingly to own experiences in a caring and appropriate manner.

Often cultural and religious differences can lead to misunderstandings between the student and the personal tutor, as they can sometimes make discussions on whole areas of life a taboo. There needs to be an understanding of the student’s cultural and religious background if sensitivity is to be shown to student’s needs. The tutor can explore these issues by discussing her own cultural background, particularly if it is different from that of the student. However, if the student does not wish to discuss her problems, the tutor must respect this, as there is nothing she can do except assure the student that she would be willing to listen and help, particularly with regards to personal matters.

Once in a while the aspect of gender can also be problematic. Depending on the cultural background, some female students are not comfortable with a male personal tutor and vice versa. In such cases there will be limited interaction between the two despite the best intentions of the tutor in forming a relationship with the student.

Thus, there is fairly extensive discussion on the role of a teacher within various literature. From this, it can be deduced that the personal tutor will function within the same parameters in majority of the professional programs, but in practice varying emphasis on different aspects of the role are seen, when applied by the personal tutor. This varying emphasis may be related to the tutor's own perception, preference and experience of personal tutoring system, both as a learner and as a tutor. The emphasis will also obviously vary with the needs of the individual student.

There appears to be little information regarding the perception of the learners about the role of the personal tutor, though some research has been carried out relating to tutorials and student satisfaction. (Hiyola & Moss 1989, Akinsanya 1992) If we are to understand the role of the personal tutor we need to take into account what the learners expect form a personal tutor so that they can obtain satisfactory support.