Towards Understanding Classroom Culture: Students’ Perceptions of Tutorials.

Following the documentation of significant and reproducible student content learning gains through the use of the Tutorials at the University of Colorado (CU), we seek to understand the meaning that students are making of this reform. Spanning five years of Tutorials use at CU, we investigate if students’ perceptions of the Tutorials shift (become more or less favorable) after the Tutorials have become fully institutionalized. We find that they do not. We observe some semesters where the majority of students perceive the Tutorials to be highly useful for their learning, but this is rarely the case. We determine that students at CU generally do not like the Tutorials. Students’ perceptions of the utility and enjoyment of Tutorials do vary significantly on a semester-by-semester basis suggesting that both the lead and secondary faculty members involved in a Tutorial course may influence the students’ experience in Tutorials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]