The study concerns the effects of tutoring on tutor children, on the learning of spatial notions, in two tutorship modalities, oral explanation and oral explanation with demonstration. Subjects were 40 children aged 8 to 9 years old, randomly assigned to three experimental groups and a control group. The study design is experimental, with pre-test and post-test. Two spatial tasks were employed as pre-test and post-tests (1 and 2). The experimental task consisted in a parking game carried out under three conditions: children alone, children in pairs for both oral explanation and oral explanation with demonstration. Results showed that tutor's learning on the focused spatial notions was favored by tutorship especially under the oral explanation with demonstration condition. Some variations on the tutor's progress were also identified on both modalities. The results provide some grounds on which tutorship may be debated in the educational field.
Tutorship; tutor children; child-to-child interaction; spatial notions learning
