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1 reference
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- Vol 3 RE: Chapter 1
- Vol 4 RE: Chapters 7, 14
scaffoldingtutoringproblem solvingcontingent supporttask simplificationguided participationfrustration managementgradual release of responsibilityJournal article Evidence summaryAt a glance
Wood, Bruner, and Ross analyse tutoring as preschool children assemble a three-dimensional wooden structure beyond unaided capability. They introduce “scaffolding” to describe how a tutor enables problem solving by controlling aspects of the task while leaving the learner to act on manageable components.
Key ideas
Observing tutor–child interaction, they identify six functions: recruiting interest, reducing the task’s degrees of freedom, maintaining direction, marking critical features, controlling frustration, and demonstrating or modelling solutions. Effective support is contingent; it depends on diagnosing the learner’s current interpretation and performance, intervening enough to sustain productive action, and adjusting as competence changes. Demonstration should preserve recognisable aspects of the learner’s attempt rather than replace it with an unrelated answer. The study is a small, task-specific experiment, not evidence that any prompting sequence works across subjects or ages.
Why it matters
Its enduring educational implication is responsive assistance: establish a shared goal, simplify without removing the intellectual problem, direct attention to consequential differences, protect persistence, and progressively return control. Scaffolding describes an interactional process between learner, tutor, and task, not merely a worksheet, hint, or permanent support.
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Edition abbreviations
- TE
- Teacher Edition
- PE
- Practice Edition
- RE
- Research Edition
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