Title of Book: Personal Tutoring in Higher Education.

Author(s) or Editor(s): Edited by Liz Thomas and Paula Hixenbaugh.

Publisher: Trentham Books

Year published: 2006

184 pages, 244 x 170mm

Price: £17.99, €27.00

ISBN number: ISBN-10: 1 85856 385 2, ISBN-13: 978 1 85856 385 5

Reviewer: Marion Webb, Kingston University, March 2007

In May 2005 the Higher Education Academy and the University of Westminster organised the first national conference on personal tutoring. The event was heavily oversubscribed indicating that this is an issue of great concern to the sector and also those of us who attended the conference discovered that this issue has recently generated a great deal of activity. Yet, as Liz Thomas points out in her introduction to this collection of work, there is a lack of published material on personal tutoring. This book attempts to address this by making a contribution to the debate with three key aims. The first is to consider the concept of personal tutoring and the role it can play to enhance the experience of students in the current Higher Education environment. Secondly the book describes a range of institutional approaches and lastly it considers the implications for staff in terms of helping them to acquire skills appropriate to the role and for this role to be acknowledged in workload models and the models of staff development required by individuals who are charged with the role.

The first section considers research by Annie Grant, Liz Thomas and Paula Hixenbaugh and colleagues, which indicates that personal tutoring is highly desirable both for students, in terms of helping them to make sense of the HE environment, and also for institutions in terms of helping them to retain students. It is argued that a pro-active personal tutor can make all the difference to a student’s chance of success

The second section explores a range of models being developed to support students within the mass higher education. At Bournemouth University a curriculum based model has been developed to connect the induction and tutoring process. A number of institutions have adopted the model described from Manchester Metropolitan University which is that of Student Support Officers. At the University of the Arts, London a strategic approach to tutoring has been adopted at a number of levels. Margo Blythman, Susan Orr, Daphne Hampton, Martina McLaughlin and Harry Waterworth stress the importance of aligning approaches to personal tutoring with key institutional priorities such as retention or the N.S.S. In this way it becomes easier to argue for resources in this case for posts (“tutorial co-ordinators”) and time allocation for tutors.

In the final section both Sally Wootten and Pauline Ridley discuss the “greater complexities of needs” that students bring to their tutors. They argue for clearer frameworks so that both students and staff know what to expect and also argue that there needs to be more training for staff in such matters as boundaries and institutional policies together with guidance from more experienced colleagues. Finally there is a consideration of the role of the tutor in less familiar contexts Rosalind Crouch and Ruth Barrett explore some of the issues around on-line tutoring and Charlotte Ramage considers the importance of the tutor who has to help the learner create structure in work based learning environments.

In this era of increased student numbers where staff and students are required to make sense of all sorts of initiatives such as Personal Development Planning, new modes of learning such as work-based learning and on-line activity it is clear that the role of the personal tutor can no longer rest on its “Come up and see me some time” laurels. This book marks a beginning in our exploration of this curiously British tradition (alternative arguments such as the French “treat them as adults” approach described by Loykie Lominé at the 2005 conference and in Academy Exchange 4 ,2006 are not explored here). The issue with which we are grappling is about trying to create the “personal” in what can seem to our students to be the impersonal world of mass higher education. Further work is required to evaluate the various models of tutorial support which seek to do this. Throughout this book there is also a strong message that further guidance and support is required for staff who take on the role of personal tutor and I can see staff developers and course tutors of Postgraduate Certificates in Learning and Teaching / Academic Practice courses making use of it on their programmes.

This immensely readable book makes a substantial contribution to raising awareness of work in the area and in beginning this important debate.