Students' and teachers' perceived and actual verbal interactions in seminar groups

This study set out to examine how much time students and teachers devote to different learning-oriented interactions during seminar sessions and students' and teachers' perceptions about the occurrence and desirability of these interactions.

Students and teachers participating in eight seminar group sessions in Year 4 of an undergraduate veterinary curriculum completed an 11-item questionnaire which asked them to rate, on a 5-point Likert scale, the frequency of occurrence and level of desirability of three learning-oriented types of interaction: exploratory questioning; cumulative reasoning, and handling of conflict about knowledge. The questionnaire also invited positive and negative responses to aspects of group interactions and an overall mark (1-10) for the seminars and group interactions. Four group sessions were video-recorded and analysed using a coding scheme. The amount of time devoted to the different interactions was calculated.

Both students and teachers gave scores of 3.0-3.5 for frequency of occurrence of exploratory questioning and cumulative reasoning and < 3.0 for occurrence of handling of conflict about knowledge. The desired occurrences of all interaction types were significantly higher than the actual occurrences according to students and teachers. Teachers were responsible for the majority of the interactions (93%). The percentages of session time devoted to teacher-centred cumulative reasoning, exploratory questioning and handling of conflict about knowledge were 65.8%, 15.6% and 3.1%, respectively.

Group interactions in seminar groups are dominated by the posing of questions by teachers to students. The moderate occurrence of group interactions as perceived by students and teachers may be explained by the inadequate preparation of teachers and students to stimulate group interactions.