Scaffolding, contingent tutoring and computer-supported learning

This paper provides an overview of the application of principles of tutoring, derived from studies of face-to-face tutoring, to the design of computer-based tutoring environments. One of the main theoretical challenges facing work on tutoring is to develop a conceptual framework to explain how the dynamics and the consequences of learner-tutor exchanges arise out of the joint regulation of interaction. Ways in which computer-based tutoring have helped to meet this challenge are illustrated. A primary focus for the empirical work presented is the impact of individual differences in learners' regulation of the tutor on learning outcomes. The findings demonstrate the potential of contingent, computer-based tutoring for the dynamic assessment of individual differences in prior attainment and learning. Ways in which computer- based systems might help to develop aspects of learners' help seeking skills and their use of time on task are identified. Important points of convergence between the findings of this work and research into knowledge-based models of tutoring and learning are discussed, and the advantages of synthesising the two approaches explored. The main aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the theory, empirical findings and issues that motivated the development of computer-based implementations of principles of scaffolding and contingent tutoring derived from studies of face to face tutoring. It will also identify and discuss implications of the ensuing research for our understanding of the tutorial process and its impact on learning. Early research into scaffolding and tutoring grew out of investigations into the acquisition of rule governed activity by children under the guidance of an experimenter-cum-tutor (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976). The children were confronted with a construction task that, unaided, they were unable to master. The main aim of the investigation was to discover whether and under what conditions 3-5 year olds might be able to master the task and to induce regularities and patterns in their task activity when an adult helped them. Although the rules for experimenter engagement with the learners were determined ahead of time, the forms of interaction that emerged in learner-tutor interaction changed systematically as a function of tutee age. The three-year-olds drove the experimenter/tutor to provide qualitatively and quantitatively different patterns of activity than the four-year-olds, and these, in turn, varied from those solicited by the five-year-olds. It would only be necessary to examine the behaviour of the tutor to make confident inferences about the age, and task competence, of the learner. The main features of tutorial support were identified in an analysis of what was termed "scaffolding functions", and the findings of the investigation were employed to illustrate as to how and why these different functions might allow learners to master and learn with help that which they could not achieve alone. Further investigations, including a study of mothers tutoring their 3-4 year olds with the same task (Wood and Middleton, 1975), demonstrated that learning outcomes for tutees varied with specific features of tutorial activity. Successful post-tutoring task activity correlated highly with the extent to which each of the tutor's actions reflected the nature of the learner's immediately preceding activity. For instance, if the tutor had made a verbal suggestion with