Does Teaching Experience Help? Differences in the Assessment of Tutees' Understanding Between Teacher Tutors and Student Tutors

Does Teaching Experience Help? Differences in the Assessment of Tutees’ Understanding Between Teacher Tutors and Student Tutors Stephanie Herppich (herppich@ipn.uni-kiel.de) Institute for Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Kiel Olshausenstrasse 62, 24098 Kiel, Germany Jorg Wittwer (joerg.wittwer@sowi.uni-goettingen.de) University of Gottingen, Educational Institute Waldweg 26, 37073 Gottingen, Germany Matthias Nuckles (matthias.nueckles@ezw.uni-freiburg.de) University of Freiburg, Department of Educational Science, Instructional and School Research Rempartstrasse 11, 79098 Freiburg, Germany Alexander Renkl (renkl@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de) University of Freiburg, Department of Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology Engelbergerstrasse 41, 79085 Freiburg, Germany Putnam, 1987). Similarly, Chi, Siler, and Jeong (2004) observed that student tutors overestimated a tutee‟s correct understanding and underestimated a tutee‟s incorrect understanding. Chi et al. (2004) explained this finding with the tutors‟ bias to use their own normative understanding as a basis for assessing a tutee‟s understanding (see also Graesser, Person, & Magliano, 1995). However, none of these studies compared the assessment skills of teacher tutors with the assessment skills of student tutors empirically although there is much theoretical research on such differences between expert tutors and novice tutors (e.g., Graesser, D‟Mello, & Cade, 2009). Therefore, it remains open as to what extent the assessment accuracy of teacher tutors differs from the assessment accuracy of student tutors. In this article, we present an empirical study to shed light on this question. To elucidate possible differences between teacher tutors and student tutors, we draw on findings from research on judgments about learners outside the tutoring context. We integrate these findings by applying Nickerson‟s (1999) theory on the development of a model of another person‟s knowledge. Abstract Tutors often have difficulty in accurately assessing their tutees‟ understanding. However, it is unclear how tutors‟ professional experience influences their assessment accuracy. Therefore, we conducted a study with N = 46 tutor-tutee dyads and compared the accuracy with which teacher tutors and student tutors assessed a tutee‟s understanding of the human circulatory system at the level of mental models. Results showed that both groups of tutors faced similar difficulties in assessing a tutee‟s understanding. However, whereas teacher tutors‟ assessment accuracy remained constant in the course of tutoring, student tutors‟ assessment accuracy decreased. Moreover, teacher tutors more accurately self-assessed their assessment accuracy than student tutors. Although teacher tutors process diagnostic information more accurately than student tutors, both groups of tutors seem to be overwhelmed by processing all information making up a tutee‟s mental model. Hence, regardless of their professional experience, tutors need to be supported in assessing a tutee‟s understanding. Keywords: assessment accuracy, human tutoring, teacher tutors, student tutors Introduction Outside the Tutoring Context: Accuracy of Judgments About Learners To be effective, instruction should be adapted to the learner (Kalyuga, 2007). Human one-to-one tutoring is a method that offers many opportunities to adapt instruction to a learner‟s understanding (Snow & Swanson, 1992). However, adaptive instruction makes it necessary for tutors to assess a tutee‟s understanding accurately. Research has shown that tutors often have difficulty with collecting diagnostically relevant information about a tutee. This seems to be true irrespective of whether experienced classroom teachers (i.e., teacher tutors) or university students (i.e., student tutors) act as tutors. For example, Chi, Roy, and Hausmann (2008) found that a teacher tutor was not responsive to a tutee‟s level of understanding and comprehension problems (see also Research has shown that classroom teachers are relatively accurate in knowing how a learner performs relative to other learners in a class (Hoge & Coladarci, 1989). However, when looking at the absolute level of the classroom teachers‟ estimates of a learner‟s performance, classroom teachers often overestimate a learner‟s performance (e.g., Bates & Nettelbeck, 2001see). Hence, classroom teachers seem to have difficulty with assessing a learner‟s individual understanding. Nevertheless, research also suggests that classroom teachers and university students differ in their ability to accurately assess a learner‟s performance. For example,