| The purpose of this case study was to examine the ways in which reading was used in the construction of domain knowledge in a semester-long series of psychology tutoring sessions. The tutor, Jason, was a graduate student in counseling, and Elise, the tutee, was a female college student-athlete. The nine tutoring sessions were audiotaped and observed by the researcher. Background information on tutor and tutee, the transcripts of the taped-sessions, field notes, interviews with the tutor and tutee, and course documents were analyzed.;The analysis revealed that reading and reading-related activities were the primary means of assisting knowledge construction during the tutoring sessions. The tutor used reading-centered activities to help the tutee develop domain knowledge and domain thinking skills, while the tutee used reading to choose the tutoring topics, to learn domain knowledge and domain thinking skills, to complete homework, and to study for exams.;The tutor assisted the tutee's learning through seven facilitating strategies: direct instruction, modeling, providing examples, questioning, feedback, opportunities for practice, and exam preparation. He presented domain-specific frameworks and organizing structures through cognitive structuring. The social interaction between tutor and tutee led to the development of the tutee's abilities to assist herself in learning the psychology content.;The tutee assisted her own learning by enlisting the tutor's aid to explain the course materials and prompting him to help her develop the thinking strategies she needed to understand and use domain paradigms. She regularly attended psychology class, took lecture notes, and completed all her study guide assignments. |
