The impact of instructor initiative on student learning: a tutoring study

In the quest to find instructional approaches that benefit student learning, engagement, and retention, evidence suggests providing students with hands-on practice is a worthwhile use of class time. This paper presents results from an exploratory study of two different instructional approaches that were encountered in a study of experienced human tutors working with novice computing students engaged in a programming exercise. No difference in average learning gains was found between a moderate approach, in which students were given control of problem solving nearly half the time, and a proactive approach in which the tutor took initiative nearly three-fourths of the time. Implications of this finding for fine-grained instructional strategy, as well as for broader classroom management decisions, are discussed. This paper also makes the case for the value of one-on-one tutoring studies as an exploratory research methodology for the comparative evaluation of computer science teaching strategies.