This paper is able to make conclusions that if used to good effect could have great implications in all of education not just HE. It seems like the obvious progression is, that if groups of students learn just as well observing a tutorial of good students then this could very easily be produced on a larger scale. With so many students going to university and this number increasing, this shows that there is no further need for employing extra tutors to aid students, instead it is possible to have one tutorial which is watched by all the other students in small groups. This way it would be possible to have the peer interaction, which is needed for learning, and not have as many academics employed, this could act as an opportunity to reduce fee’s as well.

Equally another way that this is related to life, is in a classroom environment. The conclusions of Chi et al (2008) show that interactions between a single student and a teacher in school is not just benefitting the student within the conversation but is also benefitting any observing student, showing that not just the active participants in class are learning to their potential.

Further benefits of the paper are to do with the conclusion that it is just ‘interaction’, not necessarily tutor interaction that is key to learning. This means that some of the best help that single tutors with a large group can give to their students would be to put the students in groups and get them to talk about the topic, this give the students the interaction needed to aid learning.

Two of the main goals of Chi et al (2008) paper was to design a new way of tutoring that could be easily scaled up and adapted for a number of higher education opportunities and to further their understanding of tutoring effectiveness.

The initial results that human tutoring was the most effective was not surprising, however the following results which were found were more interesting. Collaborative observation of human tutoring learned just as effectively and in fact when they observed the tutoring of competent students the observers learning was totally equivalent (if not higher). This in Chi’s opinion may show that it is ‘interaction’ that accounts for learning gains, whether that be with peers or with a human tutor.

They were able to accept their active/constructive/interactive observing hypothesis in four ways. First the Collaborative Observers were able to learn as well as the students being actively tutored suggests that it is the interactions of the observers that are important. Secondly, the fact that the more interactive the Collaborating Observers were with each other, the more they learned lends itself to support the hypothesis. Thirdly, observing collaboratively and observing alone were both manipulated and the collaborative learners learned more thus furthering their confidence in the hypothesis. Finally, Lone Observers were put into 2 groups those who were active and those who were passive and it was found that the active Lone Observers learned more than the more passive Lone Observers, again confirming the Chi et al hypothesis.

The second goal of the experiment to further their understanding of tutoring effectiveness. They found that the tutor contributes more by scaffolding the tutees than by explaining to them. This is due to the fact that scaffolding enables the students to jointly construct follow up responses, thus supporting the interactive coordination hypothesis. Chi et al also found that the tutors feedback to errors was harmful to the poor tutees and their observers, this is consistent with the interpretation that poor tutees found the feedback confusing, in part because the tutor gave them more corrective than elaborative feedback. Thus, it is not the feedback per se that determined the tutees’ learning but whether the tutees could make sense of the feedback and what kind of feedback the tutor was more likely to give. 

Whilst looking at the effectiveness of the tutors and how that affects learning it was found that, in support of other papers such as Chi et al., 2001, there was no evidence of learning from considering the tutor’s contributions alone, although some methods were slightly better than others, for example where scaffolding was used. The data, in fact, further supports the contributions of the tutees themselves, and their interactions with the tutor, as responsible for learning.

The final conclusions made by Chi et al (2008) were that students can learn by observing tutoring vicariously, showing that interactions between a teacher and student can be as important for others in the class not just the student within the interaction. The authors agree with Rogoff and colleagues that learning through observation is a valuable but often overlooked practice in mainstream schooling. Finally, the findings that observers tend to learn in dialogues that involve the tutees emphasize the importance of learning from peers, from both teaching a peer (Roscoe & Chi, 2007) as well as receiving comments and questions from a peer (Roscoe & Chi, in press).

Links well to:

Draper (2009) – Both talk about feedback, Draper talks about improving feedback and how and why feedback can be constructive. On the other side Chi talks about Anti-feedback and how she has shown that whenever the tutor gives feedback in the normal sense of the term: telling them where they went wrong and what they should have done, learning is reduced.

Constructivism / Social Constructivism – Although Chi doesn’t use the term much in this paper, a lot of her work has been on what could be seen as constructivism, i.e. the benefit to learning of getting learners to produce explanations for themselves.

The importance, or lack of it, of a teacher – Chi et al (2008) shows that Collaborative observation of human tutoring learned just as effectively and in fact when they observed the tutoring of competent students the observers learning is totally equivalent (if not higher).

Interaction – Chi et al (2008) shows how interaction is the key to learning, and that this can be peer interaction or tutor interaction but both can be as effective as each other.

Learning as Participation (not Acquisition) – Chi shows this by putting Lone Observers into 2 groups, those who were active and those who were passive and it was found that the active Lone Observers learned more than the more passive Lone Observers.