The formation of such groups should be encouraged. The tutor may become the mentor who establishes a significant personal and academic hook towards retaining the student on their path to higher education. Group members can compare and test their ideas in a sympathetic arena and enhance their thinking by listening to the thoughts and perspectives of other students. In an effective group, students learn to take responsibility for their own learning needs and often will help other students with their learning. Students who have had difficulty with specific content in a course may find themselves helping their classmates, therefore raising their own confidence level.
Students learn to ask questions, ask for clarification, and give feedback.
They practice taking risks in a safe setting. The hope is that these valuable skills will be transferred to larger classroom setting. It is easier to identify and immediately focus on student problems in a group session because of the replication of questions. Tutors report that group tutoring sessions are more interesting and often more challenging than individual tutoring sessions since they require implementation of a variety of teaching strategies and methodologies. The academic needs and learning styles of individual students are more evident in group tutoring sessions than in one-student sessions.