PART II A Sample of Findings
Before presenting a sample of the findings from the Pilot Study I would like to stress that the presentation is concise and selective and it aims at giving
• a naturalistic flavour of the kind of data obtained in the tutorials,
• a demonstration of the range of topics and psychological processes encountered in the tutorial context, and finally,
• an account of how the Pilot's experience became a bridge between the theoretical conceptualisation of the study and the realisation of the Main Study.
The presentation follows the structure indicated by the S.DIFF triad and the allocation of the instances to the various categories served the purpose of primarily ordering the data. I note that the presented instances are diverse and of fragmentary character: these features of the material are discussed in Part III.
In the following, I present a sample of observations from the Pilot Study relating to the students' difficulties with some mathematical concepts (Topical Difficulties) discussed in the observed tutorials. Logical and Symbolic Difficulties follow as well as a brief reference to some unclassified but significant other instances.
IIa.Students' Topical Difficulties
IIb.Students' Logical Difficulties
IIc.Students' Symbolic Difficulties
IId.Miscellaneous but Significant Instances
Finally, in the following I illustrate how the findings from the Pilot Study have, mostly methodologically but also thematically, contributed to the formation of the Main Study.