In this chapter I present an account of the Data Collection period. The presentation is in chronological order and my intention is to highlight those aspects of the learning context in which this study was carried out, that is the Oxford tutorial, and of the methodology which was employed, that have turned out to be significant in the light of the subsequent stages of the study. Hence I present the search for volunteers, the tutorial observation and the interviews. The intention here is to establish the links between the conceptualisation of the data collection methodology of the study, elaborated in Chapter 2, and its realisation as it took place during observation and interviewing.

Summary: From October 1993 to March 1994 twenty first-year mathematics students were observed for 14 weeks during tutorials on Analysis, Topology and Linear Algebra given to them individually or in pairs. The tutorials were tape-recorded and notes were taken during observation. The students were interviewed twice, in the middle and in the end of the observation period.