tutoring

University tutoring is, with some exceptions, in a state that should concern us. The model in recent years is sporadic, optional meetings generally used to clarify doubts about academic content, solve problems with completing tasks, review assessment results, and find solutions for students’ personal problems that affect their progress in modules. This model of tutoring may make it possible to resolve problems, but it is a limited and insubstantial version of what it could be. There is case for saying that its leitmotiv is university character education, principally what has come to be called the critical spirit or thinking. In addition, it seems that this is what the contemporary social and professional reality misses and demands: university graduates who think for themselves, always seek the truth of things, and focus on the common good. Covid-19, with all of the impact it has had for universities, especially ones that work face-to-face, offers a new opportunity for tutoring, an opportunity to reestablish it. The new situation has brought both a pedagogical-technological message and an ethical one. Both can reestablish tutoring as an ongoing, deep, and unending conversation that enriches other university situations and opens doors that lead to the best version of oneself. This work has a three-part objective: to present arguments that hold that the main purpose of tutoring is cultivation of the critical spirit or thinking; to identify obstacles raised some years ago and possibilities that the new situation brings; and, finally, to suggest a series of future-oriented conclusions so that our universities can give tutoring the place it deserves in line with their circumstances.

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Please, cite this article as follows: Esteban Bara, F., & Caro Samada, C. (2023). El cultivo del pensamiento crítico a t avés de la tutoría universitaria: una nueva oportunidad tras la Covid-19 | The cultivation of critical thinking through university tutoring: A new opportunity after Covid-19. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 81 (284), 73-90. https://doi.org/10.22550/REP81-1-2023-04

 

 

Large numbers of students on particular degrees and a progressive depersonalisation of the teaching and learning process are typical characteristics of higher education. This situation results in a need to analyse the tutorial activity processes currently in use. This work aims to investigate various factors associated with the main agents involved in this process: tutors (profiles and functions) and students (needs). It is based on a survey-type methodology creating an instrument for distribution among degree students at the Universidad de Huelva. This is first subjected to validation processes to obtain a theoretical reference model with which to evaluate interactions among the emerging factors.

Notable results include a theoretical model with correlations between tutor profiles and regressions, or influences of these profiles on functions and student needs. Furthermore, it reveals two types of university tutor: those who prioritise the academic aspects of tutoring, and those who prioritise personal aspects. Both profiles are associated with types of function that react to the needs students display throughout their time at university, and support the thesis that university tutoring is developing towards an integral model in which the personal dimension is especially relevant.

 

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Cómo citar este artículo: Delgado-García, M., Conde Vélez, S. y Boza Carreño, Á. (2020). Perfiles y funciones del tutor universitario y sus efectos sobre las necesidades tutoriales del alumnado | Profiles and functions of university tutors and their effects on students’ tutorial needs. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 78 (275), 119-143. doi: https://doi.org/10.22550/REP78-1-2020-03