Group-tutoring of essays

Abstract

In Swedish: Boken "Coaching och handledning av grupper - inom universitets- och högskoleutbildning" ges ut av www.studentlitteratur.se/universitet/. In the Department of Sociology, Lund University, nearly 200 students have in recent years annually begun to write essays on the bachelor or the master level. The scope of the essays has varied but generally their quality is good. There is low productivity, and a very small proportion of the students finish their essays in due time. From 1998 the admission is restricted, so only 80 students are accepted annually for the bachelors level. On the masters level there is still free admission and about 40 students are accepted annually. Thus in the foreseeable future about 120 students will begin to write essays annually. In recent years measures have been taken to increase the productivity with the quality of essays being kept intact. The payment for tutoring has been raised. Different supporting activities for the benefit of the students have been introduced. By the composition of official evaluation citeria the arbitrariness at the examination of the essays has been reduced. Now we wish to go further by developing a system of tutoring students in groups. The project aims at developing group tutoring of students who write essays on the bachelor and master levels in undergraduate studies in sociology. We wish to do that by introducing group tutoring while "coaching" and continually educating the tutors for this task. We apply an approach of learning by doing and action learning. Group tutoring should increase the productivity while maintaining the scientific quality of the essays.