Student perspective

"Whenever I come out of a meeting with [my personal tutor] I always feel better. He has a way of putting things into perspective and making me realise that there is a bigger picture and not following a certain path or not getting something isn't always the end of the world. Even though he might not know that what he says makes me realise all of that."

A key skill of an effective personal tutor is to open up and keep open the channels of communication. Students value a personal tutor who they can talk to and who they know is really listening to them. 

Professionals, including personal tutors, use a variety of strategies and conversational techniques to understand how best to help and support individuals with any aspect of life that might be affecting their studies, whilst still developing their capacity to find their own answers to their questions. The aim is to help students find their solution or preferred outcome from the possible options. This can be difficult to uphold, especially if a student comes to you for ‘the answer’. One such technique is motivational interviewing.

Motivational interviewing is an approach designed to help individuals to achieve their goals by eliciting and exploring their motivation behind the goal, thus increasing their likelihood of success (Miller & Rollnick, 2012). In our context the goal might be academic-related, career-related, related to work-life balance or to well-being. The basic interaction techniques of motivational interviewing are:

  • Open questions
  • Affirmations
  • Reflective listening
  • Summaries (OARS)

 

This approach can be useful for discussing issues that tutees want or need to take action on.

OARS techniques