Tutor and student perceptions of the tutor's role in problem-based learning

The role of the tutor in problem-based learning (PBL) differs dramatically from the traditional teaching role with which dental students and faculty are familiar. In this investigation, the dimensionality and complexity of the tutor role were assessed by first- and second-year dental students and by the tutors themselves using a twenty-four-item Likert-type questionnaire that served as one component of a comprehensive web-based assessment tool, the PBL-Evaluator. Evaluations were completed after each PBL case over a period of one and a half years by one class of students and for half a year by a second class. Exploratory principal components analyses of the responses to the questionnaire revealed a more complex factor structure for tutors than for students. While a five-factor solution was required for the tutors, a simpler two-factor solution sufficed for both groups of first-year students, and a three-factor solution was necessary for the second-year students. Although tutors displayed a more nuanced perspective on their performance than did students, items related to tutor modeling of professional conduct within tutorials consistently emerged as important for both.