ABSTRACT
Tutorial, of course, had an established m eaning well before PBL was introduced. T he Oxford English Dictionary, for example, provides as one definition, “a period of individual instruction given by a college or un i versity tutor to pupils, either singly or in small groups” (Vol. 16, p. 732). This denotes that a tutorial is a particular form of instructional activity, one in which a low ratio of learners to faculty affords special opportun i ties for individualized attention to learners’ needs. By this definition, applying the label of tutorial to PBL group m eeting m ight seem appro priate. Barrows (1988) has argued, however, that the PBL tutor should be more facilitory and less didactic, more guidelike and less directly instruc tive than a conventional tutor. To better understand these distinctions, we need to examine what tutors actually do, both in PBL m eetings and in o ther settings.
