However, qualitative analysis indicated that tutors and learners use these types of questions in very different ways. Consequently, one can conclude that tutors' use of these types of questions and answers indicated that they were in control of the tutorial process.
INTRODUCTION Elucidating the context
In addition to the emphasis on student-driven interaction, the instructor's role is to guide student engagement with the course material. The learners do not demonstrate the critical, open-ended questioning strategies needed to deal with the demands of textuality.
A SOCIO-CULTURAL FRAMEWORK FOR LEARNING AND CHANGE
It should be noted that Althusser made a clear distinction between the categories 'the individual' (a concrete person) and 'the subject'. According to Bhaskar (1979), this dialectical conception of society cannot succeed because it is based on the perception of the individual and the social as a dialectical unity.
WAYS OF KNOWING
As a result, these learners approach university problems that are poorly structured in the same way they would. Meaning does not reside in the text, but rather must be actively constructed by the reader. Fiction attempts to involve the reader in the unfolding scene with the use of rhythmic poetic devices (such as alliteration and assonance) or the use of quotation marks (to indicate speech) in much the same way that spoken discourse relies on repetition or parallel constructions to involve the listener in the conversation (Tannen, 1982).
The first question implicit in the text is the author's question, which the text answers. The second question implicit in the text is the additional question that the text provokes in the reader. However, textual meaning does not extend indefinitely, forever deferred in the absence of a transcendental signifier (Derrida, 1995).
In summary, scholars dealing with academic texts must be able to critically evaluate the knowledge contained in those texts, realizing that the meaning of the text must be constructed in the interaction between them and the text. Speech, then, is a mode of action that unites community members in the shared construction of knowledge.
MEDIATING MEANING: A FRAMEWORK FOR QUESTIONING 1. Introduction
Recitation and the construction of a narrative: Closing in order to open?
It is essentially a question format where the tutor asks factual questions and the learner responds with the answer. Turn taking in recitation is strictly determined by the tutor, with the tutor asking a question, learner answering and tutor then. With their conversation limited to answering the tutor's questions, the learners do not talk amongst themselves.
Because this is a text-based course, recitation (by having them recite what they know) helps the teacher see if students are keeping up with the work. The students are therefore expected to know the answer to the question the teacher asks them. However, the teacher does not only have to judge the answer as 'good' and close the question.
In recitation, the educational benefit comes from the way the teacher uses questions and the use he/she makes of answers to these questions. For Oillon (1986), a 'discussion' is an interaction in which inquiry is opened and the teacher and students together construct the answer to the problem discussed.
Discussion: Ill-structured problems and Open Questions
In order to learn, one must be able to effectively monitor one's commitment to the task. As a result, the metacognitive instruction in tutorials can model for students how they should approach exam questions as well as demonstrate how to ask open-ended questions and mediate students' access to textuality. Consequently, many students do not enter the exam with the critical attitude required to effectively engage with the type of questions characteristic of problem solving in the human sciences, namely poorly structured questions (Schleppegrell & Simich-Dudgeon, 1996).
However, assessment questions, particularly in the humanities, require a critical (as opposed to merely . repetitive) response from students. Unlike exam questions encountered in school, assessment questions in the humanities have a dual focus; first, they require the student to deliver the correct content required, and second, they require students to respond in a critical manner (Miller. Instructions to discuss, or compare, evaluate, or contrast are unfamiliar to many students, who have been trained throughout their schooling to simply repeat the content of the course in the test.
This critical requirement, implicit in the question itself, needs to be explicitly 'opened up' to students, with tutors actively modeling open-ended questioning techniques that show students how to approach exam questions to engage with form, as opposed to content alone. . To this end, assignments that model exam question examples along with feedback for those assignments should be part of any entry-level humanities course, with the assignment mediating. students' critical engagement with assessment questions.
METHOD
Subjects
Of the 502 students enrolled in the Psychology 1A course, 385 were students of English as a first language and 117 were students of English as a second language. Of the 502 first-year psychology students enrolled at the University of Natal, 70% of second-language English (hereafter L2) speakers attended at least one tutorial session, while only 23% of first-language (L1) speakers attended tutorial system used (Lemmon, 1999). Because teachers are required to keep detailed records of the students they interact with during help sessions, a profile of the subjects was created for this study.
Analysis of data aimed at 1) identifying what kinds of questions students ask and what answers these questions elicit from tutors, focusing on whether these .. questions open or close inquiry 2) identifying the tutors' questions and the answers. Analysis was carried out at two levels: 1) a quantitative analysis and evaluation of the data in relation to specific categories and 2) a qualitative elaboration of the trends identified in the quantitative analysis. Furthermore, the textual nature of the data lends itself to analysis that draws on the hermeneutic tradition of.
Therefore, the quantitative trends identified are subjected to qualitative analysis to provide what Denzin (1989) calls 'thick descriptions' of the data. Initially, the data were analyzed in terms of very broadly defined mentor and learner strategies (see Appendix A).
TUTOR .EvAUJArES
OPEN QUESTIONS
Questions were categorized as open-ended if they exhibited the following features: 1) they opened the discussion by eliciting open-ended responses and/or 2) they opened the inquiry by critically examining the implicit logic of textual arguments and highlighting relationships between different facts in the text. These kinds of questions are meant to open up inquiry and move students' understanding from the familiar to the unknown. The following types of open questions (relational and imitation) are not TV whips for di8log.
These are the kinds of questions one must be able to ask when approaching text and interrogating the implicit relationships that weave text together. Since these questions are essentially textual in nature, they require the learner to be familiar with the demands of textuality. What these types of questions essentially do is explicitly draw connections between parts of the text for learners.
These kinds of questions not only open up discussion, they also model for students how to appropriately approach text-based knowledge and illustrate how to develop a critical or questioning attitude toward text. Questions were categorized as metacognitive questions if they exhibited the following features: 1) they reformulated the students' questions and/or answers, . modeling the appropriate questioning attitude required to engage in academic inquiry, and 2) the question was repeated to direct students' attention.
GROUP COHESION
Questions were categorized as group cohesion questions if they exhibited the following characteristics: 1) the question elicited feedback responses from students, allowing the tutor to monitor student progress, and 2) the question elicited a response from the group inviting students to participate in the discussion. These questions provide feedback to the tutor regarding student progress as well as the tutor's 'teaching ability'. Repeating (LR 1B) the tutor's questions/answers or repeating their own or another student's questions/answers.
Although they support discussion, they are not open-ended responses, as they ultimately seek to clarify what the mentor asked rather than follow the mentor's question. Feedback (LR28) is a direct response to the tutor's feedback questions (T.Q.8), providing the tutor with feedback on her explanations. So, although these questions are academic open-ended questions for students (borrowed from academic texts, assignments, and exams), they do not demonstrate students' ability to question the text effectively.
They are questions that require some sort of limit or boundary to be set by the teacher. Consequently, they demonstrate a desire to base knowledge on a single authority, either the teacher or the text.
OPEN RESPONSE
Metaphors (TR 1B) are used as a 'teaching device' to relate unfamiliar theoretical concepts to the familiar: For example, the following is an explanation of the concept of uniformitarianism. Reading from texUtesUfeedback (TR 1C) enables the tutor to 'teach' by referring to specific text material. Tutors often explain what they have just read, facilitating student engagement and understanding of the text. "Tutor 1:
Responses were categorized as closed if they exhibited the following characteristics: 1) they prematurely closed the probe in a direct response 2) simply repeated the question and/or answer, closing rather than opening the discussion. Closed answers, where the tutor directly answers the student's question without further elaboration, do not facilitate discussion and therefore close inquiry. In this response, the tutor directly answers the student's questions, no further instruction or elaboration is given.
34; Student 1: So they say it's individual differences, but it does exist. Teacher 3: They say there are a limited number of possibilities for the types of personalities that exist.
GROUP COHESION
- DISCUSSION 1. Introduction
Furthermore, the tutor repeats his question to get the student to focus on a specific problem. In this example, the tutor's use of a monitoring question elicits an interrogative response from the student. However, the supervisor does not answer immediately, but asks the question to the group again.
The learner seeks a single, final answer from the mentor, who is seen as an authority. The question asked by the student is so 'boundless' that the mentor must set limits. In the following example, the student asks the tutor to explain the meaning of the word 'elicit'.
For example, in the following interaction the tutor asks a closed factual question to check the student's knowledge base. For example, the tutor's reformulation of the student's question in the following interaction models a more appropriate questioning attitude that guides rather than controls the learner's engagement with the task. In the following example, the tutor asks an implication question intended to provoke discussion and receives no response from the students.
The following interaction illustrates that students may not share a level of understanding with the tutor.
